The Green Fields of France

The Green Fields of France - The Fureys

Well how do you do young Willy McBride

Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside

And rest for a while little warm summer sun

I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done

I see by your gravestone your were only nineteen

When you joined the great falling in nineteen sixteen

I hope you died well and I hope you died clean

Or young Willy McBride was it slow and obscene

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down

And the bands play the last post and cold as

And the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind

In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined

All though you died back in nineteen sixteen

In some faith full heart are you forever nineteen

Or are you wear stranger without even a name

And close in forever behind a glass frame

In an old photograph torn battered and stained

And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down

And the bands play the last post and cold as

And the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Oh the sun shines down 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 cloud's

There's no gas no barbed wire there's no gun firing now

But here in this graveyard it's still no mans land

And 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 dammed

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play that fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down

And the bands play the last post and cold as

And the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Now you can way McBride I can't help wonder why

And does you lie here know why they die

And did they believe when they answered the calls

Did they really believe that this war would end wars

The sorrow the suffering the glory the pained

And the killing and dying was all done in vain

For young Willy McBride it all happened again

And again and again and again and again

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play that fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down

And the bands play the last post and cold as

And the pipes play the flowers of the forest

Did they beat the drum slowly did they play that fifes lowly

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down

And the bands play the last post and cold as

And the pipes play the flowers of the forest