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

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the dеath march as they lowered you down?
Did thе band play The Last Post and Chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Did you leave a wife or sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever behind the glass frame
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they beat the drum 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 and Chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
The sun shining down on the 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 barbed wire, there's no guns firing down
But here in this graveyard that is still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drum 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 and Chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

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

Did they beat the drum 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 and Chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?