Green Fields Of France C/D?

I only know the Fureys version which is amazing. But what of the original version by Eric Bogle? Or the many other versions.

Also there's a film coming
http://www.aftermathww1.com/mcbride.asp

Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
And I'll rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
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 sound the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

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

Well the sun's shining now on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches are vanished long under the plough
No gas, and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it'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?
You really believed that this war would end war?
But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
The killing and dying - it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Chorus

I love singing this song, my favourite recorded version is the one done by The Men They Couldn't Hang, with a peel session version being the best of the best.

It always sits nicely in my head with 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' another one I love to sing.

Also written by Eric Bogle!

Tom D must be at lunch. I thought he would've posted by now.

I like the Pogues version of the latter.

Oh wow, this tune is one that I have never heard on record but have heard about forty thousand billion times from a dude who comes and stays each holiday - just him, his flask and his guitar - in the village where my mum lives in the Highlands. And, it being the Highlands, there'd be regular ceilidhs. At each one this dude would take up his guitar and sing this song. I think I knew all the words by the time I was eight. Haven't heard it since I got to be old enough to spend the ceilidhs in the bar instead...

Incidentally the song is actually called 'No Man's Land' and there is a good Filk (thank you kate) called 'No Moggy's Land' or just Moggy the Cat

Well, how d'ya do, old Moggy the Cat?
I just noticed you landed where I almost sat.
D'ya mind if I push you a bit to the side?
I've been driving all day on the road where you died.
You've been squashed like some butterfly pressed between glass
Were you hit by a truck that was moving too fast?
Did he slam on the brake as he saw you go past?
Or, Moggy the Cat, did he step on the gas?

CHORUS Did he honk the horn loudly?
Did you stand your ground proudly?
Did a shadow fall o'er ya as the truck mowed you down?
Did your eyes glow in that fleeting darkness?
Did the birds come and pick at your carcass?

The ground squirrels and mice all seem happy today,
The butterflies frolic; the hummingbirds play.
A mockingbird sits there composing a dirge
Till he finally yields to his scavenger urge.
The robins and sparrows all join in the feast
In their joyous relief that the terror has ceased.
And the birds dance around you, not sad in the least,
Like the Munchkins danced over the Witch of the East.

Old Moggy the Cat, I still wonder why
You road-kill look so damned surprised when you die.
Did you think that some animal spirit survives?
Did you really believe that a cat has nine lives?
Well, if that is true, this is life Number Ten
Getting ever more flat, spinning round now and then,
As the cars run you over again and again
And again and again and again and again!