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?