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THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE
(Written by Eric Bogle)
[Originally called "No Man's Land", it is also known as "Willie McBride"]

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
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 call-up in 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'?

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

Chorus

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze, 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

Chorus

Now young Willie McBride I can't help wonder why
Do those who 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?
For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing, the dying was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

Chorus


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