1. Well how do you do Private William McBride
   Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
   I'll rest for awhile in the warm summer sun
   I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done 
   
2. And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
   When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916
   And I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
   Or William McBride was it slow and obscene? 
   
R: Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the pipes lowly?
   Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
   Did the bugle play the last post and chorus?
   Did the pipes play the "Flowers o' the Forest"? 
   
3. Well the sun it shines now on these green fields of France
   The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
   The trenches have vanished now under the plow
   No gas and no barbed wire, no guns fire now 
   
4. For here in this graveyard it's still no man's land
   And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand
   To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
   And a whole generation who butchered and damned 
R:
   
5. Well I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride
   Do all those who lie here know just why they died?
   Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
   Did you really believe this war would end all wars? 
   
6. But the suffering the sorrow the glory the shame
   The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
   For William McBride it's all happened again
   And again and again and again and again. 
R: