Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun?
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the glorious fallen in nineteen-sixteen
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers o' the Forest?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And though you died back in nineteen-sixteen
To that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enclosed behind some glass pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
and fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Did they beat the drum slowly...
But the sun shining now on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have all vanished under the plough
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned
Did they beat the drum slowly...
And I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride
Do all those who lie know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
The suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride it all happened again
And again and again and again and again
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers o' the Forest?
Eric Bogle
Guitar chords for No Man’s Land
G C Am Well how do you do, Private William McBride D G D Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave-side G C Am And rest for a while in the warm summer sun? D C G I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done G Am And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen D G D When you joined the glorious fallen in nineteen-six-teen G Am Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean D C G Or Willie McBride was it slow and ob-scene? D C G Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly? D C G Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Am D Did the bugles sound the last post in chorus? G C D G Did the pipes play the Flowers o' the Forest?