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Well how do you do young Willie
McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down
by your grave side
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 grave stone you
were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen
in nineteen sixteen
I hope you died well and I hope
you died clean
Or young 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
And did the band play the last
post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers
of the forest
Did you leave you 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
And closed in forever behind
the glass frame
In an old photograph torn battered
and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown
leathern frame?
Did they beat the drum slowly
Did the play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march
as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post
and chorus
And did the pipes play the flowers
of the forest
The sun now it shines on the
green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze
it 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 its
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
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 play the last
post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers
of the forest
Ah young Willie McBride I can't
help wondering why
Do those that lie here know why
did they die
And did they believe when they
answered the call
Did they really believe that
this war would end war
Well the sorrow, the suffering,
the glory, the pain
The killing and dying were all
done in vain
For young Willie McBride it's
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 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
and chorus
And did the pipes play the flowers
of the forest.
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