Celtic Thunder - The Green Fields Of France lyrics

rate me

Well, 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 19

When you joined the great fall-in in 1916

Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean

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 a ere wife or a sweetheart behind

In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined

And though you died back in 1916

In that faithful heart you're forever 19

Or are you a stranger without even a name

Enclosed forever behind a glass pane

In an old photograph torn, 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

Now young Willie McBride I can’t help wonder why

Do those who lie here know why did they die

Did they believe when they answered the calls

Did they really believe that this war would end wars

But the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain

The killing and the dying were all done in vain

But for 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

Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest