C                     Am
Well how do you do Private William McBride
        G                       F            C
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
                             Dm
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun
           G                   F           C    C
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
                                      Dm
I can see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
          G               F         C           G    G
When you joined the dead heroes of nineteen fifteen
       C                         Am             Dm
And I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
    G                      F          C   C
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene


[Chorus]
          G                         F              C
Did they beat the drums slowly and sound the fife lowly?
         G                            F           C
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
         F                              G     G
Did the bugles sing the last post and chorus?
         C               F             G  C
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?


[Verse 2]
     C                     Am
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
    G                           F          C
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
                             Dm
And though you died back in nineteen fifteen,
    G                           F           C    C
In some faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
                              Dm
Or are you a stranger without even a name
G            F       C            G    G
Enshrined forever behind a glass pane
      C                        Am            Dm
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
     G                     F              C   C
And fading to yellow in a bound leather frame


[Chorus]
          G                         F              C
Did they beat the drums slowly and sound the fife lowly?
         G                            F           C
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
         F                              G     G
Did the bugles sing the last post and chorus?
         C               F             G  C
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?


[Verse 3]
     C                           Am
The sun’s shining now on these green fields of France
     G                               F           C
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance
                           Dm
The trenches have vanished under the plow
    G                          F           C   C
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
                                  Dm
But here in this graveyard it is still no man's land.
     G                F         C             G   G
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
    C                          Am          Dm
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
       G                       F             C      C
To a whole generation who was butchered and damned.


[Chorus]
          G                         F              C
Did they beat the drums slowly and sound the fife lowly?
         G                            F           C
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
         F                              G     G
Did the bugles sing the last post and chorus?
         C               F             G  C
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?


[Verse 4]
         C                          Am
Well, I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride,
   G                        F            C
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
                                      Dm
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
         G                   F             C    C
Did you really believe this war would end wars?
                                      Dm
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
     G            F            C            G   G
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain.
     C                       Am         Dm
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again,
      G                     F          C   C
And again, and again, and again, and again.


[Chorus]
          G                         F              C
Did they beat the drums slowly and sound the fife lowly?
         G                            F           C
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
         F                              G     G
Did the bugles sing the last post and chorus?
         C               F             G  C
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?