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Chords4
Chords in this song4
Verse 1
Well, how do you do private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day long and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone 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 Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene.
Chorus
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down,
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus,
Did the pipes play The Flowers of the Forest.
Verse 2
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined,
And though you died back in nineteen-sixteen,
To that loyal heart are you always nineteen.
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame.
Chorus
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down,
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus,
Did the pipes play The Flowers of the Forest.
Verse 3
Well, the sun's shining now on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance,
The trenches are vanished, long under the plough,
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still "No Man's Land",
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
Chorus
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down,
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus,
Did the pipes play The Flowers of the Forest.
Verse 4
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 that this war would end wars.
The suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Chorus
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly,
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down,
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus,
Did the pipes play The Flowers of the Forest.
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus,
Did the pipes play The Flowers of the Forest.
Comments
Spotted a wrong chord, or know a capo position that sounds closer to the record?
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See all →These need nothing beyond G, C, Am, D.
