Green Fields Of France Songtext

von The Men They Couldn't Hang

Well how do you do now, you Willie MacBride?
Do you mind if I sit down beside your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun?
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done

Well I see by your gravestone you was only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen of nineteen sixteen
Well I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or Willie MacBride was it low and obscene?

Did they beat the drums slowly and play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band sound the last post and chorus?
Did they pipe the flowers of the forest?

Did you leave a young wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart are your memories enshrined?
For although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart you're forever nineteen

Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed forever behind a glass pane
In an old photograph tor, battered and stained
Faded to yellow with brown leather frayed?

Did they beat the drums slowly and play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band sound the last post and chorus?
Did they pipe the flowers of the forest?

As the sun beats down on the green fields of France
There's a soft summer breeze makes the red poppies dance
And see how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, there's no barbed wire, no guns firing now

Oh but here in this grave yard it's still no man's land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
And through man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation who were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drums slowly and play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band sound the last post and chorus?
Did they pipe the flowers of the forest?

Now Willie MacBride, I can't help wonder why
All those that lie here now why did they die?
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe tat this war could end wars?

Oh the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying, 'twas all done in vain
For, Willie MacBride, oh it happened again
And again and again and again and again

Did they beat the drums slowly and play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band sound the last post and chorus?
Did they pipe the flowers of the forest?