| [00:08.26] |
Oh how do you do, young Willie McBride |
| [00:13.06] |
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside? |
| [00:18.04] |
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun |
| [00:23.04] |
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done |
| [00:28.08] |
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen |
| [00:32.92] |
When you joined the great fallen in 1916 |
| [00:39.13] |
Well I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean |
| [00:44.24] |
Or Willie McBride, was is it slow and obscene? |
| [00:48.84] |
Did they beat the drums slowly? |
| [00:51.54] |
Did they play the fife lowly? |
| [00:54.00] |
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down? |
| [00:59.98] |
Did the band play the last post and chorus? |
| [01:05.27] |
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest? |
| [01:14.04] |
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind |
| [01:18.91] |
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined? |
| [01:23.97] |
And though you died back in 1916 |
| [01:28.90] |
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen |
| [01:33.93] |
Or are you a stranger without even a name? |
| [01:38.76] |
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane |
| [01:44.74] |
In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained |
| [01:49.98] |
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame |
| [01:54.66] |
Did they beat the drums slowly? |
| [01:57.38] |
Did they play the fife lowly? |
| [01:59.78] |
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down? |
| [02:05.73] |
Did the band play the last post and chorus? |
| [02:11.06] |
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest? |
| [02:20.06] |
The sun shining down on these green fields of France |
| [02:24.68] |
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance |
| [02:29.85] |
The trenches have vanished long under the plow |
| [02:34.63] |
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now |
| [02:39.59] |
But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land |
| [02:44.59] |
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand |
| [02:50.62] |
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man |
| [02:55.72] |
And a whole generation were butchered and damned |
| [03:00.36] |
Did they beat the drums slowly? |
| [03:03.01] |
Did they play the fife lowly? |
| [03:05.61] |
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down? |
| [03:11.49] |
Did the band play the last post and chorus? |
| [03:16.78] |
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest? |
| [03:25.65] |
And I can't help but wonder oh Willie McBride |
| [03:30.52] |
Do all those who lie here know why they died |
| [03:35.44] |
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause |
| [03:40.04] |
Did you really believe that this war would end wars |
| [03:45.01] |
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame |
| [03:50.26] |
The killing and dying it was all done in vain |
| [03:56.41] |
Oh Willie McBride it all happened again |
| [04:01.41] |
And again, and again, and again, and again |
| [04:06.15] |
Did they beat the drums slowly? |
| [04:08.79] |
Did they play the fife lowly? |
| [04:11.40] |
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down? |
| [04:17.30] |
Did the band play the last post and chorus? |
| [04:22.59] |
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest? |
| [04:30.31] |
|