The Green Fields of France

[Intro:  ]
G | G | C | Am | D | D | G | D |  

Verse 1:  
     G          Em        C      Am  
Well how do you do, young Willie McBride.  
       D         D             G            D  
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?  
     G        Em            C           Am  
I'll rest for awhile in the warm summer sun.  
          D           D        C          G  
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.  

      G            Em                  C        Am  
And I see by your gravestone, you were only nineteen  
         D               D         G D  
When you joined the dead heroes in 1915.  
        G             Em           C             Am  
Well, I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean.  
    D        D             C          G  
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?  
         D             D                C               G  
Did they beat the drum slowly; did they sound the fifes lowly;  
        D           D                C           G  
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?  
        C              C             G       G  
Did the bugle play The Last Post and Chorus;  
        C              Am             D  C  G  
Did the pipes play The Flowers of the Forest?  
Verse 2:  
            G       Em        C            D  
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind;  
   D             D                C      G  
In some faithful heart are you forever enshrined?  
     G               Em      C D  
And, though you died back in 1915,   
   D             D                C    G  
In some faithful heart are you forever 19?  

   G         Em               C      Am    
Or are you a stranger without even a name,  
  D          D      C            D  
Enshrined forever behind a glass frame,  
      G        Em            C          Am  
In an old photograph, torn & tattered & stained,  
    D         D           C             G  
And fading to yellow in a bound leather frame?  

Chorus  

Verse 3:  
          G              Em            C              Am  
Well, the sun, it shines down on these green field of France.  
    D               D               C           G  
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.  
    G             Em            C         G  
The trenches have vanished now, under the plow.  
D             D               C         G  
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns fire now.  

    G            Em             C              Am  
But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land.  
        D               D          C            D  
And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand  
   G             Em            C          Am  
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.  
  D         D           C           G  
A whole generation were butchered & damned.  

Chorus  

Verse 3:  
        G              Em          C      Am  
Well, I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride,  
   D             D        C             C  
Do all those who lie here know why they died?  
        G        Em                   C            G  
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?  
        D        D              C             G  
Did you really believe this war would end all wars?  

          G              Em          C          Am  
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,  
    D             D             C           C  
The killling, the dying, it was all done in vain.  
    G         Em              C         Am  
For William McBride, it's all happened again,  
    D          D          C          G  
And again, and again, and again, and again.  

Chorus  
Ending: | G | G | C | Am | D | D | C | G