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Green Fields of France : by Eric Bogle.

D G Em A D A

Well how do you do, young Willy McBride, do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side

D G Em A G D

And rest for a while in the warm summer sun, I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done?

D G Em A D A

I see by your gravestone your were only nineteen When you joined the great fallen in nineteen fifteen

D G Em A G D

Well I hope you died well and I hope you died clean, Or young Willy Mc Bride was it slow and obscene?

[Chorus]

A G D

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

A G A

Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?

G D

Did the band play the last post and chorus?

G Em A D

Did 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?

And though you died back in nineteen fifteen , In some faith full heart are you forever nineteen?

Or are you a stranger without even a name, enshrined forever behind a glass frame

In an old photograph torn battered and stained, And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

[Repeat Chorus]

Well 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 mans land, The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand

To man's blind indifference to his fellow man, To a whole generation that was butchered and dammed.

[Repeat Chorus]

Well Will Mc Bride I can’t help wonder 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 the dying was all done in vain,

For young Willy Mc Bride it all happened again, And again, and again, and again, and again.

[Repeat Chorus]

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Written by Eric Bogle, a Scot, who moved to Australia perhaps 30 years ago. Someone has also written a reply from Willie McBride.

Willie McBride's Reply
(Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet (Copyright 1997)
Tune: "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle

My dear friend Eric, this is Willie McBride,
Today I speak to you across the divide,
Of years and of distance of life and of death,
Please let me speak freely with my silent breath.

You might think me crazy, you might think me daft,
I could have stayed back in Erin, where there wasn't a draft,
But my parents they raised me to tell right from wrong,
So today I shall answer what you asked in your song.

   Yes, they beat the drum slowly, they played the pipes lowly,
   And the rifles fired o'er me as they lowered me down,
   The band played "The Last Post" in chorus,
   And the pipes played "The Flowers of the Forest."

Ask the people of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine,
If my life was wasted, if I died in vain.
I think they will tell you when all's said and done,
They welcomed this boy with his tin hat and gun.

And call it ironic that I was cut down,
While in Dublin my kinfolk were fighting the Crown.
But in Dublin or Flanders the cause was the same:
To resist the oppressor, whatever his name.

    Yes, they beat the drum slowly... etc.

It wasn't for King or for England I died,
It wasn't for glory or the Empire's pride.
The reason I went was both simple and clear:
To stand up for freedom did I volunteer.

It's easy for you to look back and sigh,
And pity the youth of those days long gone by,
For us who were there, we knew why we died,
And I'd do it again, says Willie McBride.

    Yes, they beat the drum slowly...etc.

Copyright Stephen L Suffett 1997