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Well how do you do, young Willy McBride? |
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Do you mind if I sit here down by 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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I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen |
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When you joined the great fallen in nineteen-sixteen |
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I hope you died well |
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And I hope you died clean |
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Oh young Willy McBride, was is it slow and obscene? |
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(Chorus) |
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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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Did you leave here a wife or a sweetheart behind? |
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In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined? |
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Although you died back in nineteen-sixteen |
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In that faithful heart, are you forever nineteen? |
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Or are you a stranger without even a name |
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Enclosed then forever behind a glass pane |
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In an old photograph torn, battered, and stained |
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And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame? |
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(Chorus) |
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The sun now shines o'er the green fields of France |
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There's a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance |
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And look how the sun shines from under the clouds |
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There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no gun firing now |
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But here in this graveyard it's still No Man's Land |
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The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand |
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To man's blind indifference to his fellow man |
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To a whole generation that were butchered and damned |
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(Chorus) |
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Now young Willy McBride, I can't help but wonder, why? |
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Do those that lie here know why they died? |
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And did they believe when they answered the call? |
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Did they really believe that this war would end wars? |
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For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the shame |
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The killing and dying were all done in vain |
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For young Willy McBride it all happened again |
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And again, and again, and again, and again |
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(Chorus X2) |