Green Fields Of France also known as "William McBride" (by Eric Bogle)
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for awhile beneath the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and now I'm nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916;
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
Or, young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the Death March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play "The Last Post And Chorus"?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers Of The Forest"?
Did you leave 'ere a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And although you died back in 1916,
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed forever behind a glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn, and battered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the Death March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play "The Last Post And Chorus"?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers Of The Forest"?
Ah the sun now it shines on these green fields of France,
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance,
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds;
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard is still No Man's Land,
and countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
and a whole generation that was butchered and damned
Did they sound the Death March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play "The Last Post And Chorus"?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers Of The Forest"?
Ah young Willie McBride, I can't help wonder why,
Did all those who lay here really know why they died?
And did they believe when thay answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end war?
For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain
For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the Death March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play "The Last Post And Chorus"?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers Of The Forest"?
