Willie McBride (Green Fields of France)
Eric Bogle


     C          Am       F        Dm
Well how do you do young Willie McBride,
       G                       F           C
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
    C          Am           F           Dm
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
          G                   F          C
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
  C           Am                  F        Dm
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen,
         G                          F           G
When you joined the great fallen in nineteen sixteen,
     C               Am          Dm
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
   G                     F          C
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene.


[Chorus]
         G
Did they beat the drum slowly,
         F             C
Did they play the fife lowly,
         G                              F           G
Did they sound the death march, as they lowered you down,
        F             Dm           C      Am
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus,
        C              F              G    C
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.



        C           Am        F          Dm
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
   G                        F          C
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined,
    C               Am      F           Dm
And though you died back in nineteen sixteen,
   G                       F           C
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen.
   C         Am           F          Dm
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
   G                     F              G
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
      C        Am             Dm
In an old photograph all torn tattered and stained,
    G                    F             C
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.


[Chorus]
         G
Did they beat the drum slowly,
         F             C
Did they play the fife lowly,
         G                              F           G
Did they sound the death march, as they lowered you down,
        F             Dm           C      Am
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus,
        C              F              G    C
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.




    C             Am            F               Dm
The sun's shining down on these green fields of France,
    G                              F           C
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance,
    C             Am            F         Dm
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
   G                       F           C
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
    C            Am             F               Dm
But here in this graveyard it's still "No Man's Land",
    G                          F            G
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
   C              Am           Dm
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
      G                          F             C
And a whole generation that were butchered and damned.


[Chorus]
         G
Did they beat the drum slowly,
         F             C
Did they play the fife lowly,
         G                              F           G
Did they sound the death march, as they lowered you down,
        F             Dm           C      Am
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus,
        C              F              G    C
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.



    C                Am         F        Dm
And I can't help but wonder, oh Willie McBride
   G                      F             C
Do all those who lie here know why they died,
        C        Am                   F            Dm
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
G                                 F             C
Did they really believe that this war would end wars.
        C                Am          F          Dm
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
    G                        F           G
The killing and dying it was all done in vain,
   C        Am           Dm
Oh Willie McBride it all happened again,
    G                       F          C
And again, and again, and again, and again.


[Chorus]
         G
Did they beat the drum slowly,
         F             C
Did they play the fife lowly,
         G                              F           G
Did they sound the death march, as they lowered you down,
        F             Dm           C      Am
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus,
        C              F              G    C
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.