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Scots' musician, songwriter, & balladeer.
Hazel Whyte
Scots' Music
No Man's Land
Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here, by your graveside?
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And 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 play the
pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you, as they lowered you
down?
Did the bugles sound the "Last Post" in chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some loyal 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:

The sun's shining down on these green fields of
France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies
dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that'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?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it 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Were the outdated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