I remember riding through strip mining country in SE Ohio as a kid, on the way to West Virginia. They flattened a lot of hills down there. You couldn't see the full extent of the damage by car. I think they started repairing and replanting the areas later on.
After Prine recorded it, he played a tape of it for his dad. “When the song came on, he went to the next room and sat in the dark while it was on,” Prine recalled. “I asked him why and he said he wanted to pretend it was on the jukebox.”