“Rose in Paradise” is a song written by Stewart Harris and Jim McBride, and recorded by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. It was released in January 1987 as the first single from the album Hangin’ Tough. “Rose in Paradise” was Waylon Jennings’ twelfth number one country single. The single went to number one for one week and spent a total of nineteen weeks on the country chart. Recording country artist Chris Young has a remake of the song as a duet with Willie Nelson from the album “The Man I Want to Be”.

From the album Hangin’ Tough
B-side “Crying Don’t Even Come Close”
Released January 1987
Genre Country
Length 3:42
Label MCA
Songwriter(s) Jim McBride Stewart Harris
Producer(s) Jimmy Bowen Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings – Rose In Paradise Lyrics

She was a flower for the takin’,
Her beauty cut just like a knife…
He was a banker from Macon,
Swore he’d love her all his life…

Bought her a mansion on a mountain
With a formal garden and a lot a land…

But paradise became her prison,
That Georgia banker was a jealous man!

Every time he’d talk about her,
You could see the fire in his eyes…
He’d say,
“I would walk through Hell on Sunday,
To keep my Rose in Paradise…”

He hired a man to tend the garden,
Keep an eye on her while he was gone..
Some say they ran away together…
Some say that gardner left alone…

Now the banker is an old man…
That mansion’s cum-ble-ing down…
He sits all day and stares at the garden…
Not a trace of her was ever found…

Every time he talks about her,
You can see the fire in his eyes…
He’d say, “I would walk through Hell on Sunday,
To keep my Rose in Paradise..”

Now there’s a rose out in the garden…
Its beauty cuts just like a knife…
They say that it even grows in the winter time…
And blooms in the dead of the night…