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The Green Fields Of France Also known as "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle.

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride, Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside. And rest for awhile '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 if nineteen-sixteen. I hope you died well and I hope you died clean. Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene. Chorus: Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly, Did they 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?' And did you leave 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 the glass pane In a old photograph, torn and battered and stained And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame? (Repeat chorus) The sun now it shines on these 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 guns firing now But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land. 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 damned. (Repeat chorus) Now young Willie McBride I can't help wonderin' why Do all those who lie here know why they died And did they believe when they answered the cause Did they really believe that this war would end wars? Well the sorrows, the suffering, the glory, the pain The killing and dying were all done in vain For young Willie McBride it's all happened again. And again, and again, and again, and again. (Repeat chorus)

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