Well how do you do young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here, down by you're grave side?
And rest for a while, 'neath the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen,
When you joined the great fallen, in nineteen sixteen.
I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean.
Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife flowly?
Did the sound the dead march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play 'The Last Post' and chorus?
Did the pipes play, 'The Flowers Of the Forest'?
Did you leave 'ere a wife, or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart, is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back, in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart, are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name?
Enclosed and forever behind a glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn battered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife flowly?
Did the sound the dead march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play 'The Last Post' and chorus?
Did the pipes play, 'The Flowers Of the Forest'?
The sun now it shines on the Green Fields Of France,
There's a warm summer breeze that 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 grave yard it's still No Mans Land,
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand,
To mans blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that was butchered and damned.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife flowly?
Did the sound the dead march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play 'The Last Post' and chorus?
Did the pipes play, 'The Flowers Of the Forest'?
Young Willie McBride 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 wars?
The sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying was it all done in vain?
For young Willie McBride it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again and again.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife flowly?
Did the sound the dead march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play 'The Last Post' and chorus?
Did the pipes play, 'The Flowers Of the Forest'?
Taken from AlbumSongAndLyrics.comDid they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife flowly?
Did the sound the dead march as they lowered you down?
And did the band play 'The Last Post' and chorus?
Did the pipes play, 'The Flowers Of the Forest'?