The Green Fields of France The Corries

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 working all day and I'm nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the dead heroes of nineteen-sixteen
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife
Lowly
Did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down
Did the bugles play the Last Post and chorus
Did the pipes play the 'Flooers o' the Forest'

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back there in nineteen-sixteen
In that faithful heart are you ever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed and forgotten behind the glass frame
In a old photograph, torn and battered and stained

And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame