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 19

when you joined the great fall-in in 1916

I hope you died well and I hope you died clean

Or young 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 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 19

Or are you a stranger without even a name

Enclosed then forever behind a glass frame

In an old photograph torn, battered and stained

And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.





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





The sun now it shines on the green fields of France

There's a warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance

And look how the sun shines from under the clouds

There's no gas, no barbwire, there's no guns firing now

But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land

the countless white crosses stand mute in the sand

To man's blind indifference to his fellow man

To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.





Did they beat the drum slowly did they play the fife lowly

Did they sound the death march as they