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'? [01:23] [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] [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] [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'?