ANGELIC UPSTARTS LYRICS

"Greenfields Of France"

Written 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 a while in 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
And 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 loudly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
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 a glass frame
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow, in a brown leather frame

Well the sun, now it shines, on the green fields of France
Theirs a warm summer breeze, to make the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbwire, there's no guns firing now

But here in this graveyard that'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 was butchered and damned

Young Willie McBride, I can't help wondering why
Do those that lie here know why that they died?
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end war?

The sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain
Young Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

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