Intro:
Well how do you do young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest for a while in 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 fallen in 1916,
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean,
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene.
Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the dead march, as they lowered you down,
Did the band play the last post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined,
Although 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 frame,
In an old photograph all 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 dead march, as they lowered you down,
Did the band play the last post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France,
Theres a warm summer breeze that makes
the red poppies dance,
and look how the sun shines from under the trees
thers no gas, no barbed wire, no guns 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.
Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the dead 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, Willie McBride I cant help wonder why
Do all those who lie here know why they did die,
and did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end all wars.
Well, the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying it was all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the dead march, as they lowered you down,
Did the band play the last post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.