How do you do young willie mcbride,   Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,   And 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 you were only 19   When you joined the great fall-in 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 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         Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind   In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined   Although you died back in 1916   In that faithful heart are you forever 19   Or are you a stranger without even a name   Enclosed then forever behind a 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 now it shines on the green fields of france   There's a warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance   And look how the sun shines from under the clouds   There's no gas, no barbwire, there's no guns firing now   But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land   The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand   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         Now young willie mcbride I can't help wonder why   Do those who lie here know why did they die   Did they believe when they answered the call   Did they really believe that this war would end wars   Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain   The killing and the dying were all done in vain   For young 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