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NO MAN'S LAND Time: 3/4 Tenor: G Bass: D
- AKA: The Green Fields Of France
- Eric Bogle, 1975, Record: Now I'm Easy
- Record: Peter, Paul & Mary Flowers and Stones
- Record: The Clancy Brothers, Live With Robbie O'Connell
- Source: Eric Bogle Songbook, page 32, Key: G
- Source: New Folk Favorites, page 68, Key: G
*
Well, how do you do, Private William Mc-Bride
*
Do you mind if I sit here, down by your grave-side
* *
And I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun
* (*)
I've been walking all day; Lord, and I'm nearly done
* * *
And I see by your gravestone, you were only nine-teen
*
When you joined the glorious fallen in nineteen six-teen
* *
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
*
Or Willie Mc-Bride, was it slow and ob-scene
CHORUS:
*
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly
*
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down
* *
Did the bugles play The Last Post in chorus
Did the pipes play The Flowers Of The For-est
*
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart be-hind
*
In some faithful heart is your memory en-shrined
* *
And though you died back in nineteen-six-teen
* (*)
To that loyal heart are you always nine-teen
* * *
Or are you a stranger without even a name
*
Enshrined for-ever be-hind a glass pane
* *
In an old photo-graph, torn and tattered and stained
*
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame
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NO MAN'S LAND (page 2)
*
The sun's shining now on these green fields of France
*
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
* *
The trenches have 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 in-difference to his fellow man
*
To a whole gener-ation who were butchered and damned
*
And I can't help but wonder now, Willie Mc-Bride
*
Do all those who lie here know why they died
* *
Did you really be-lieve them when they told you the cause
* (*)
Did you really be-lieve that this war would end wars
* * *
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
*
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
* *
For Willie Mc-Bride, it's all happened a-gain
*
And -gain and -gain and -gain and -gain
ENDING: CHORUS, THEN REPEAT THE LAST TWO LINES OF THE CHORUS
NOTES:
- Asterisk (*) = new bar, no chord change
- Period (.) = eighth-note rest
- Initial underline (_) = half-note rest
- Terminal underlines (_)= note sustained into the next bar
- Submitted: 94-02-06
- By: Barrie McCombs (bmccombs@acs.ucalgary.ca)
- Make a Joyful Noise!