Paradise: Hetch Hetchy Valley

Music by John Prine (sung to the music of “Paradise”)

Words adapted by Ron Good  © April 2, 2004.

When I was a child
My family would travel
down to Yosemite
Where Native people were born
There's a grand landscape garden
that's often remembered
So many times
that my memories are worn

(Chorus)
And daddy/mommy (alt) won't you take me back to Tuolumne County
Down to the great river
Where Hetch Hetchy lays
Well, I'm sorry my children
but you're too late in asking
San Francisco's dam builders took it away

Well, sometimes we'd travel
down the Tuolumne Canyon
from Soda Springs to Wapama Fall
Where the air smells so sweet
We'd play in the meadows
And we'd climb to the top
of trees two hundred feet tall

(Chorus)

The dam builders came
with smoky steam shovels
and they tortured the timber
and flooded the land
they made lots of money
but the land was forsaken
and they wrote it all down
as the progress of man

(Chorus)

I dream of floating
down the Tuolumne River
When there's nothing left
of the O'Shaughnessy Dam
I'll be in that high mountain temple
enjoying paradise right where I am

(final Chorus)

And daddy/mommy (alt) won't you take me back to Tuolumne County
Down to the great river
Where Hetch Hetchy lays
Well I'll be glad to my children
Thank you for asking
John Muir's dream is now here to stay

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