No Man's Land

歌詞

Well how do you do, Private William McBride Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side? A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19 when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916 Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene? Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus? Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'? And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind? In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined And though you died back in 1916 To that loyal heart are you always 19 Or are you just a stranger without even a name Forever enclosed behind some glass-pane In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame? Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus? Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'? Well the sun it shines down on these green fields of France The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance The trenches are vanished now under the plough No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now But here in this graveyard it is still No Man's Land And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand To man's blind indifference to his fellow man And a whole generation that was butchered and downed Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus? Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'? And I can't help but wonder now Willie 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 them that this war would end war? But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame - The killing, the dying - it was all done in vain For Willie McBride, it's all happened again And again, and again, and again, and again Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the pipe lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus? Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?