Lest We Forget

I want to thank ATmouse for drawing my attention to this. Now hereit is.

Let us remember not just our US veterans today, but the for a moment, recall the sacrifices of not just our military folk, but our allies - especially our brothers and sisters to our North, for today is Remembrance Day there.

This song was written about WWI by an Irish folk artist, back in 1975. It's one of my favorites. I found this verson by John Mc Dermott on youtube, too.


Green Fields of France
Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
And I'll rest for awhile in 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 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 o' the Forest'?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you always 19?
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

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

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?
You really believed that this war would end war?
But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
The killing and dying - it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Chorus


John Mc Dermott's version on youtube