Standard (EADGBE)
Well, how do you do, Private William Mc-Bride
Do you mind if I sit here, down by your grave-side
And I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day; Lord, and I'm nearly done
* *
And I see by your gravestone, you were only nine-teen
When you joined the glorious fallen in nineteen six-teen
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or Willie Mc-Bride, was it slow and ob-scene
Chorus
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down
Did the bugles play The Last Post in chorus
Did the pipes play The Flowers Of The For-est
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart be-hind
In some faithful heart is your memory en-shrined
And though you died back in nineteen-six-teen
To that loyal heart are you always nine-teen
* *
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enshrined for-ever be-hind a glass pane
In an old photo-graph, torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame
NO MAN'S LAND (page 2)
The sun's shining now on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished, long under the plough
No gas and no barbed-wire, no guns firing now
* *
But here in this graveyard, it's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind in-difference to his fellow man
To a whole gener-ation who were butchered and damned
And I can't help but wonder now, Willie Mc-Bride
Do all those who lie here know why they died
Did you really be-lieve them when they told you the cause
Did you really be-lieve that this war would end wars
* *
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For Willie Mc-Bride, it's all happened a-gain
-gain and
-gain and
-gain and
-gain
ENDING: CHORUS, THEN REPEAT THE LAST TWO LINES OF THE CHORUS
NOTES:
- Asterisk (*) = new bar, no chord change
- Period (.) = eighth-note rest
- Initial underline (_) = half-note rest
- Terminal underlines (_)= note sustained into the next bar