The Green Fields of France..........Homepage

1. Now how do you do young Willie McBride
   Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
   And rest for a while neath the warm summer sun
   I’ve been walking all day and I'm nearly done
   I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
   When you joined the great fallen in
   I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
   Or young Willie McBride was it slow and obcene
   
   Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
   Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
   And did the band sound the last post and chorus
   Did the pipes play the flooers O' the forest
2. Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
   In some faithfull heart is your memory enshrined
   Although you died back in
   In some faithfull heart your forever nineteen
   Or are you a stranger without even a name
   Enclosed in forever behind a glass frame
   In an old photograph torn battered and stained
   And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
   Chorus
3. The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
   There's a 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 down
   But here in this graveyard it's still no mans land
   The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
   To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
   To a whole generation that lie butchered and damned
   Chorus

4. Ah young Willie McBride I can't help wonder why
   To those who lie deep, now why did they die
   And did they believe when they answered the call
   Did they really believe that this war would end wars
   Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
   The killing, the dying was all done in vain
   For young Willie McBride it all happened again
   And again and again and again and again
   Chorus

Eric Bogle