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 can see by your gravestone, you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916.

Well I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus'
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers of the Forest'

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


Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
And sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus
And did the pipes play 'The Flowers of the Forest'


Now Willie McBride, I can't help wonder why
Do those that lie here know why did they die
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end wars
And the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
And the killing and dying was it all done in vain
For young 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 they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus
And did the pipes play 'The Flowers of the Forest'


Now the sun, shines down on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer's breeze that makes the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plough
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard, it's still no man's land
And the countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
From a man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that who butchered and damned


Chorus
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers of the Forest'


Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers of the Forest'