The Green Fields of France (aka No Mans Land / Willie McBride)
The Green Fields of France was written by the Scottish born Australian Eric Bogle ( who also penned And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda ) who laments the meaningless absurdity of World War 1 and subsequent wars. Bogle penned The Green Fields of France after visiting a World War 1 graveyard in France. Following on from the song, Piet Chielens, coordinator of the In Flanders Fields War Museum in Ypres, Belgium checked all 1,700,000 names registered with the Commonwealth War Commission and found records for ten Privates Willie McBrides. However, only one of these died at the age of 19 in 1916 so it is reasonable to assume that the young man in the song refers to Private Willie McBride of the Royal Inniskillin Fusiliers. McBride served and died with the Fusiliers as part of the Northern Irish Regiment in the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and is buried in the Authuille British Cemetery near Albert and Beaumont-Hamel.
The Green Fields of France was recorded by The Clancy Brothers, Dropkick Murphys, The Fureys and The Merry Ploughboys and is especially popular in Ireland.
The Green Fields of France
Well, how do you do Private William McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for awhile neath the warm summer sun
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done
And I see by your gravestone, you’re only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in nineteen sixteen
Well I hope you died quickly, I hope you died clean
Or poor Willy Mcbride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the pipes lowly?
Did they bugles carry you over as they lowered you down?
And did the band play ‘The Last Post’ in chorus?
Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers Of The Forest’?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And though you died back in nineteen-sixteen
In that faithful heart are you always nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without a name?
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane
In an old photograph, torn and tattered, and stained.
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the pipes lowly?
Did they bugles carry you over as they lowered you down?
And did the band play ‘The Last Post’ in chorus?
Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers Of The Forest’?
Well the sun’s shining down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
There’s no gas, no barb wire, there’s no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that’s still no-man’s land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
The whole generation was butchered and damned
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the pipes lowly?
Did they bugles carry you over as they lowered you down?
And did the band play ‘The Last Post’ in chorus?
Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers Of The Forest’?
And I can’t help but wonder young Willy McBride
Do those that lie here know why that they died?
And did they really believe you when you told them the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, and the sorrow, the glory of pain
The killing and dying they were all done in vain
For young Willy McBride it’s all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again…
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the pipes lowly?
Did they bugles carry you over as they lowered you down?
And did the band play ‘The Last Post’ in chorus?
Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers Of The Forest’?