Groene velden

Dolf Jansen introduceerde het via een wat wrakke bandopname bij RVZ. Daarna vond ik het op vinyl en kon er een betere opname voor algemeen gebruik ter beschikking komen. Het werd nog uitgebracht in een versie van The Men They Couldn't Hang indertijd ook.
De tekst is een beetje anders dan die van Eric Bogle, maar tenzij het afvuren van schoten bij het begraven een essentiële omissie vormt is er niet iets belangrijks veranderd.
Ik moet er eerlijk bij zeggen dat ik dit niet met droge ogen heb kunnen draaien, in de versie van The Fureys & Davey Arthur. En nog niet. En nog niet.

Of Eric Bogle in de buurt van de Somme zit of oostelijker in de richting van Lotharingen vertelt het lied niet.

THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down 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 nineteen
When you joined the great fall-in in Nineteen-Sixteen.
Well I hoped you died quick, and I hoped you died clean,
Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post and 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 Nineteen-Sixteen,
To that faithful heart you're forever nineteen,
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
In an old photograph torn, tattered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame

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

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently 't makes the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow,
There's no gas, no barbed wire; there's no gun firing now!
But here in this graveyard, that's still no mans land,
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation that was butchered and damned

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

And I can't help but wonder oh Willie McBride,
Now did all those that 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 and dying it was all done in vain.
Oh young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again and again and again!

Did they beat the drums slowly,
Did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the forest? (refrein bis)