Song · John Prine
“Paradise” by John Prine
From the album John Prine (1971)
“Paradise” by John Prine appears on 13 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 2001 and 2026. It was first released in 1971 on the album John Prine. Its best result is #16 on The Colorado Sound Top 800 Songs About Places. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #334 indie & aaa song of all time.
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"Paradise" comes from John Prine's 1971 debut, and it's a folk song with coal dust in its lungs. Prine wrote it about the ruin that strip mining brought to Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where his parents came from, naming Peabody and the little town of Paradise, which was emptied and knocked down in 1967 so a TVA power plant could grow.
Arif Mardin produced it plainly and well: Prine singing and playing acoustic guitar, Steve Goodman on second guitar and harmony, Dave Prine on fiddle and Neil Rosengarden on bass. Prine cut it again on German Afternoons in 1986. In the last verse he asks for his ashes to go down the Green River, and after his death in 2020 they did; a park by the Rochester Dam was named for him in 2022.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 90 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2009 | 136 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Essential Songs | 913 |
| 2009 | 520 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) | 885 |
| 2016 | 776 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Countdown 2016 | 913 |
| 2018 | 776 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs | 892 |
| 2019 | 365 | WYEP | WYEP Labor Day Weekend Countdown 2019 | 1099 |
| 2019 | 365 | WYEP | WYEP Big Spring Countdown 2019 | 1017 |
| 2020 | 383 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2021 | 145 | WYEP | WYEP 2021 Labor Day Countdown | 168 |
| 2022 | 703 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Colorado Sound Songs of All Time | 1055 |
| 2023 | 109 | WYEP | WYEP Countdown to Fall 2023 | 1229 |
| 2023 | 16 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Songs About Places | 800 |
| 2026 | 192 | WYEP | WYEP Greatest Songs of All Time | 1180 |
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