[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]