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Prine also re-recorded "Paradise" for his 1986 album, German Afternoons. The song is about the devastating impact of strip mining for coal, whereby the top of the mountain is blasted off with dynamite to reach the coal seam below. The song is also about what happened to the area around the Green River in Kentucky because of the strip mining. The song references the Peabody Coal Company, and a now-defunct town called Paradise in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
In 2015, he was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Prine received a lifetime achievement recognition at the Grammy Awards in January 2020. On April 7, 2020, Prine died at the age of 73 from complications arising due to the Covid-19 coronavirus. Half of Prine’s ashes were spread in Green River, Kentucky, and the remaining were buried in Chicago besides his parents.