Green Fields Of France

Chords

Standard

          C               Am       Fm      D7
          Well how do you do young Willie McBride,
                 G                       Fm           C
          Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
                         Am           Fm           D7
          And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
                    G                    Fm          C
          I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
          C             Am                  Fm    D7
          I see by your gravestone you were only 19,
                   G                Fm         C G
          When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
               C               Am          D7
          Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
             G                     Fm        C
          Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene.


          Chorus:

          C        G
          Did they beat the drum slowly,
	            Fm             C
	  Did they play the fife lowly,
                   G                             Fm           G
          Did they sound the dead march, as they lowered you down,
                  Fm                            C   Am
          Did the band play the last post and chorus,
                  C              Fm              G   C
          Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.


	      C               Am       Fm      D7
          And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
	      G                       Fm        C
          In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined,
	                 Am           Fm D
          And though you died back in 1916,
	     G                        Fm       C
          To that loyal heart  you're forever 19.
	  C            Am               Fm      D7
          Or are you a stranger without even a name,
	     G    Fm                 C              G
          Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
             C           Am             D7
          In an old photograph all torn tattered and stained,
              G                    Fm           C
          And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.


          Chorus

	      C             Am            Fm               D7
          The sun's shining down on these green fields of France,
	      G                               Fm           C
          The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance,
			    Am            Fm         D7
          The trenches have vanished long under the plow
	     G                        Fm           C
          No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
	      C            Am             Fm               D7
          But here in this graveyard it's still "No Man's Land",
	      G               Fm          C            G
          The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
	     C           Am              D7
          To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
	        G                          Fm             C
          And a whole generation that were butchered and damned.


          Chorus

	        C              Am         Fm        D7
          And I can't help but wonder, oh Willie McBride
	     G                      Fm             C
          Do all those who lie here know why they die,
                   Am       Fm                    C
          Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
                    G                       Fm             C
          Did they really believe that this war would end wars.
	              C             Am          Fm         D7
          Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
	      G           Fm        C               G
          The killing and dying it was all done in vain,
             C        Am           D7
          Oh Willie McBride it all happened again,
              G                  Fm          C
          And again, and again, and again, and again.