Paradise and, Waratah Rivulet and Peabody

A week ago, I went to the Joadja Vineyard for a musical performance, which had a few surprises for me. The group called "The Songcatchers" performed a mix of country and Bluegrass music. I know Bob McInnes, a Robertson "local", and I have seen John Hall performing at various Folk Music events around Robertson before.

I was blown away by this particular song:

Paradise

by John Prine

When I was a child, my family would travel
To western Kentucky, where my parents were born
And there's a backward old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

CHORUS:

• And daddy won't you take me back to Mulenberg county
• Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay
• Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin'
• Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
  

Well sometimes we'd float right down the Green River
To an abandoned old prison down by Atry Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

CHORUS

Then the coal company came, with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

CHORUS

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am

CHORUS

And here is the first reason why I was so moved by this song.

I grew up in Victoria, and I remember visiting the town of Yallourn. It was built by the State Electricity Commission (it was a "company town" quite literally). The town was built to service the local coal mine. Eventually the original mine ran out of supplies, and the SEC expanded the mine, literally "devouring" the town.

The people were moved to nearby towns of Moe, Traralgon and Morwell.

So this song had real resonance with me. I know a town where this actually happened.

And here is the second reason why I was so moved by this song.
This is the Waratah Rivulet, cracked and killed by the Metropolitan Mine (near Helensburgh on the Woronora Plateau, north from Wollongong.). The river was cracked by subsidence (technically they call this "upsidence"). It was caused by the river having been undermined by Longwall Mining. The Metropolitan mine is owned by Peabody. Yes, the very same company which started out in America, and which is immortalised in that song lyric.

Then the coal company came, with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

and this:

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin'
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Clearly Peabody Energy has not changed its ways since the bad old days, back in Kentucky, USA.

This damage is current.

Ironically, the NSW Minerals Council gave Peabody's an Environment Award late in 2008 - for their work on the Waratah Rivulet. "PEABODY’S Metropolitan Colliery has taken out first prize in the environment category at the 2008 Environment and Community Excellence Awards, held by the NSW Minerals Council (NSWMC) on 18 November 2008." Can you believe their gall, their total cynicism, their hypocrisy?

No wonder I was nearly moved to tears by listening, unexpectedly, to that song lyric.

Footnote: Some artistic licence was involved in the song-writing - but not too much. It is close enough to the truth. Town gone, to facilitate coal mining.

Wikipedia says:

• Paradise was a small town in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, United States. The town was located 10.5 miles east-north-east of Greenville and was formerly called Stum's Landing. It was once a trading post along the Green River, but it no longer exists. It was torn down in 1967 by the Tennessee Valley Authority to make room for a coal-burning electric plant.
• A song about Paradise, Kentucky, called "Paradise", was written and made famous by singer/songwriter John Prine. The lyrics attribute the destruction of Paradise to the Peabody company, and allude to the fact that the town was a site for strip mining. In reality, the town was flooded by the waters of the Green River in 1969, when a dam was erected to facilitate barge traffic to and from the coal fields.

Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise,_Kentucky