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 And I see by your gravestone you were only 19 When you joined the great fallen in 1916 Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or 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 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 And though you died back in 1916 To that loyal heart you're forever 19 Or are you a stranger without even a name Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane In an old photograph torn tattered and stained And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame
The sun's shining down on these green fields of France The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance The trenches have vanished long under the plow No gas no barbed wire no guns firing now But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land The countless white crosses in mute witness stand To a man's blind indifference to his fellow man And a whole generation who were butchered and damned
And I can't help but wonder no Willie McBride Do all those who lie here know why they died Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause" Did you really believe that this war would end wars Well the suffering the sorrow the glory the shame The killing and dying it was all done in vain Oh Willie McBride it all happened again And again and again and again and again