Young Willie, My Bride
I see by your grace, darling, you were only nineteen
When you joined the great family in nineteen-sixteen
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Oh, Young Willie, My Bride, was it slow and obscene
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife loudly
Did they sound the death march as the lovers do now
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the fall
Did you leave your wife or a sweetheart behind
In some fateful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back in nineteen-sixteen
In that fateful heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger with a diviner name
Enclosed and far apart behind the glass frame
In an old photograph torn apart in time
Unfaded to your love in the brown and dark frame
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife loudly
Did they sound the death march as the lovers do now
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the fall
The sun, how it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer's breeze that makes the red puppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no gunfighting now
But here in this graveyard is still no man's land
The countless white crosses done built in the sand
To man's blight in the France, to his fellow man
To all generations that were butchered and damned
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife loudly
Did they sound the death march as the lovers do now
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the fall
Are you willing, my bride, I can't help but wonder why
Do those that lie here know why did they die
And do they believe with the answer to come
Did they really believe that this war would end tomorrow
Well, the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying, it all done in vain
Are you willing, my bride, it all happened again
And again and again and again and again
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife loudly
Did they sound the death march as the lovers do now
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the fall
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife loudly
Did they sound the death march as the lovers do now
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the fall
Thank you.