[Originally by Eric Bogle]
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Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride
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Do you mind if I sit here down beside your graveside
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And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
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I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
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And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
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When you joined the great fallen in 1916
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Well I hope you died quick
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And I hope you died clean
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Oh Willy McBride, was is it slow and obscene
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Did they beat the drums slowly?
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Did they play the fife lowly?
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Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
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Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
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Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
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And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
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In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
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And though you died back in 1916
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To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen
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Or are you a stranger without even a name
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Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
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In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
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And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
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Did they beat the drums slowly?
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Did they play the fife lowly?
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Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
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Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
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Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
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The sun shining down on these green fields of France
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The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
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The trenches have vanished long under the plow
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No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
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But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land
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The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
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To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
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And a whole generation were butchered and damned
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Did they beat the drums slowly?
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Did they play the fife lowly?
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Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
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Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
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Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
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And I can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
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Do all those who lie here know why they died?
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Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
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Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
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Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
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The killing and dying it was all done in vain
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Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
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And again, and again, and again, and again
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Did they beat the drums slowly?
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Did they play the fife lowly?
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Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
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Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
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Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
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-----------------
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The Green Fields Of France
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Dropkick Murphys |