Green Fields of France: very touching song as a tribute to the soldiers who died in World War I (1916)

http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-mcbride.html

  Did you really believe them  —
that this war would end war?

I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?

(From the song The Green Fields of France)

The picture above was made by Mike Lobley especially for the song The Green Fields of France, also known as No Man's Land. The song was written by Eric Bogle.

After a visit to the war cemeteries in France in the early seventies Bogle turned a traditional Scottish lamento into a dramatic fictious conversation with Private William McBride. Maybe Bogle was inspired by an headstone he had seen, but problably the man and the name are equally fictious.

Piet Chielens, coordinator of the In Flanders Fields War Museum in Ypres, Belgium, and organizer of yearly peace concerts in Flanders, once checked all 1,700,000 names that are registered with the Commanwealth War Commission. He found no less than ten Privates William McBride.

Three of these William McBride's fell in 1916, two were members of the Northern Irish Regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusilliers, and died more or less in the same spot during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. One was 21, the other 19 years old. "The law of the greatest numbers does beat even the most poetical license", Chielens remarks.

The 19 years old Pte William McBride is buried in Authuille British Cemetery, near Albert and Beaumont-Hamel, where the Inniskilling Fusilliers were deployed as part of the 29th Division.


These are the words:

The Green Fields of France

Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down beside your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916
Well I hope you died quick
And I hope you died clean
Oh Willy McBride, was is it slow and obscene

Did they beat the drums 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 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 1916
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame

Did they beat the drums 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 in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

The sun 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
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drums 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 in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And I can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

Did they beat the drums 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 in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Fores