Green Fields of France

Well how do you do, young Willy 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 nineteen-sixteen I hope you died well And I hope you died clean Oh young Willy McBride, was is it slow and obscene? () Did they beat the drums 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 in? Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest? Did you leave here a wife or a sweetheart behind? In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined? Although you died back in nineteen-sixteen In that faithful heart, are you forever nineteen? Or are you a stranger without even a name Enclosed then forever behind a glass pane In an old photograph torn, battered, and stained And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame? () The sun now shines o'er the green fields of France There's a warm summer breeze that 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 gun firing now But here in this graveyard it's still No Man's Land The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand To man's blind indifference to his fellow man To a whole generation that were butchered and damned () Now young Willy McBride, I can't help but wonder, why? Do those that lie here know why they died? And did they believe when they answered the call? Did they really believe that this war would end wars? For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the shame The killing and dying were all done in vain For young Willy McBride it all happened again And again, and again, and again, and again