Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia – Bruce 'Utah' Phillips (last verse by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard)
Sung by Emmylou Harris & Mary Black, Recorded by Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, and Utah Phillips; introduction by Utah Phillips. SheetMusic(pdf)

The green rolling hills of West Virginia
Are the nearest place to heaven that I know.
Though the times are sad and drear and I cannot linger here
They will keep me and never let me go.

My daddy said, “don’t ever be a miner,
For a miner's grave is all you’ll ever own.
Never have a dime to spare, hard times everywhere
Now these times they are the worst I’ve ever known.”

I’ll move away into some crowded city,
In a Northern factory town you’ll find me there.
Though I leave my heart behind, I will never change my mind,
For this troubled life is more than I can bear

But someday I’ll go back to West Virginia,
To the green rolling hills I love so well.
Someday I’ll go home and I know I’ll right the wrong
These troubled times will follow me no more.

"It's these hills. They keep you. And when they've got you, they won't let you go." - A woman in West Virginia talking to Utah Phillips.

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