Intro: 
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Verse 1: 
     G          Em        C      Am 
Well how do you do, young Willie McBride. 
       D         D             C            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: 
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