No Man's Land / Flowers of the Forest - June Tabor

[00:01.30]Well how do you do, Private Willie McBride,
[00:07.49]Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
[00:13.80]And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun
[00:19.99]I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
[00:27.35]I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
[00:34.19]When you joined the glorious fallen in nineteen-sixteen.
[00:40.07]I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
[00:46.40]Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
[00:53.91]Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the fife lowly?
[00:59.34]Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered ye down?
[01:06.83]Did the bugles sing “The Last Post” in chorus?
[01:13.25]Did the pipes play the 'Flowers o' the Forest'?
[01:24.49]And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
[01:31.34]In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
[01:37.97]And, though you died back in nineteen-sixteen
[01:44.16]To that faithful heart are you always nineteen
[01:51.68]Or are you just a stranger without even a name
[01:58.38]Forever enclosed behind some glass pane
[02:04.69]In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained
[02:11.32]And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame.
[02:18.89]Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the fife lowly?
[02:25.04]Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered ye down?
[02:32.62]Did the bugles sing “The Last Post” in chorus?
[02:39.10]Did the pipes play the 'Flowers o' the Forest'?
[02:50.72]Well, the sun is shining down on these green fields of France;
[02:57.72]The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance
[03:04.13]The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
[03:10.35]No gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
[03:18.07]But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land
[03:24.77]The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
[03:31.08]To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
[03:37.02]And a whole generation that were butchered and damned.
[03:44.52]Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the fife lowly?
[03:50.79]Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered ye down?
[03:58.15]Did the bugles sing “The Last Post” in chorus?
[04:04.63]Did the pipes play the 'Flowers o' the Forest'?
[04:16.35]And I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride,
[04:22.85]Do all those who lie here know why they died
[04:29.56]Did you really believe them when they told you \"the cause\"?
[04:36.21]Did you really believe that this war would end wars
[04:44.05]For the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
[04:50.76]The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
[04:57.12]For Willie McBride, it’s all happened again
[05:03.38]And again, and again, and again, and again.
[05:11.13]Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the fife lowly?
[05:17.76]Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered ye down?
[05:25.07]Did the bugles sing “The Last Post” in chorus?
[05:31.90]Did the pipes play the 'Flowers o' the Forest'?