And how do ye do young Willie McBride
Do ye mind if I sit here down by yer graveside
To rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day boys am I nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen back in 1916
Well I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
But young Willie McBride was it sad and obscene
Chorus
Well 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 or chorus?
Or did the pipes play the flowers of the forest
Did ye leave a young wife or a sweetheart
behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back there in 1916
In that faithful heart you're forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even name
Enclosed and forgotten behind a glass frame
In an old photograph, torn, battered n stained
That's faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
Chorus
Well the sun how it shines on those
green fields of France
And there's a warm summer breeze it makes the red poppies dance
But 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 sure its still no mans land
Where the countless white crosses lie new in the sand
cos for mans blind indifference towards his fellow man
Sure a whole generation were butchered and damned
Chorus
Well young Willie McBride I can't stop
wondering why
Do all those who lie here, know why did they die
Did they really believe, when they answered the call
Did they really believe, that this war would end wars
But they saw all the suffering, sure the glory, the pain
Sure the killing, and the dying, was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again, And again
And again And again And again.
