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Traditional Celtic Music, Scottish Songs & Border Ballads
Scots' musician, songwriter, & balladeer.
Hazel Whyte
Scots' Music
Green Fields Of
France
Well how do you do young Willie MacBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer's sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.

I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the Great Fallen in nineteen
sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie MacBride was it slow and obscene?

Chorus:

Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the
fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered
you down?
And did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?

Did you leave ere a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined.
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen.

Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever behind a glass frame.
In an old photograph, torn, battered, and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France,
There is a warm summer breeze makes the red
poppies dance.
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds,
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns
firing now.

But here in this graveyard, its still no mans land,
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand,
To mans blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and
damned.

Ah, young Willie McBride, I can't help wondering
why,
Do those that lie here do they know why they died.
And did they believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars.

Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride its all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again
A simple brief
thought on Scottish
Independance.

Were the outdated
union not of some very
high value to England and
the English, why would
they fight so to try to
keep it?

There are only so many
slices to a pie, for one to
have more, another must
have less.

Lastly - to those Scottish
"Loyalists" - to whom are
you loyal?
Scots royalty died in the
1700's so it can be no
Scots crown - And
certainly not it appears to
those who came before,
that bled for Scotland
and her freedom !  
In the words
of Burns, as he
wrote from the heart.

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie.

Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power,
Chains and slaverie.

Wha would be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a Slave?
Let him turn and flie:

Wha for Scotland's king and law,
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Free-man stand, or free-man fa',
Let him follow me.

By Oppression's woes and pains!
By your Sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

Lay the proud Usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Let us Do - or Die!!!

Choose your destiny.
Tab/Sheet Music
As Available