Green Fields Of France The Fureys

[Verse 1]
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 fallen in 1916.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

[Chorus]
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death 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'?

[Verse 3]
Did you leave 'ere a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever, behind a glass frame?
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame