Well how do you do, young Willy McBride, Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside, rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun, I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone were only 19, You joined the great fallin' in 1916. Well I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean. Willy McBride, was it slow obscene?
[Chorus:] Did they beat the drums slowly, they play the fife lowly? Did they sound a 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?
you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind, In some faithful heart, is your memory in shrine? though you died back in 1916, In that faithful heart, you're forever 19.
Or are you a stranger without even a name, Enclosed forever behind a glass pane. In an old torn and battered and stained, And faded to yellow in a brown yellow frame.
[Chorus]
Now Willy McBride, I can't help wondering why Do those who lie here know why they died. they really believe when they answered the cause, Did they really believe that this war would wars?
But the sorrow, the sufferin', the glory, the pain The killing and dying were all done in vain. Willy McBride, it all happened again, and again, and again, and again, and again.