OK hopefully this should be an improvement on the other guys tabs for this song.
It saves you having to mess around playing chords with a capo on the eighth fret and means you
now play it with a capo on the third fret...which seems is much more comfortable
C Am Fm D7
Well how do you do young Willie McBride,
G Fm C
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
Am Fm D7
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
G Fm C
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
C Am Fm D7
I see by your gravestone you were only 19,
G Fm C G
When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
C Am D7
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
G Fm C
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene.
Chorus:
C G
Did they beat the drum slowly,
Fm C
Did they play the fife lowly,
G Fm G
Did they sound the dead march, as they lowered you down,
Fm C Am
Did the band play the last post and chorus,
C Fm G C
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest.
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/d/dropkick_murphys/green_fields_of_france_crd_ver_2.html ]
C Am Fm D7
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
G Fm C
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined,
Am Fm D
And though you died back in 1916,
G Fm C
To that loyal heart you're forever 19.
C Am Fm D7
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
G Fm C G
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
C Am D7
In an old photograph all torn tattered and stained,
G Fm C
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.
Chorus
C Am Fm D7
The sun's shining down on these green fields of France,
G Fm C
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance,
Am Fm D7
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
G Fm C
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
C Am Fm D7
But here in this graveyard it's still "No Man's Land",
G Fm C G
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand,
C Am D7
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
G Fm C
And a whole generation that were butchered and damned.
Chorus
C Am Fm D7
And I can't help but wonder, oh Willie McBride
G Fm C
Do all those who lie here know why they die,
Am Fm C
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
G Fm C
Did they really believe that this war would end wars.
C Am Fm D7
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
G Fm C G
The killing and dying it was all done in vain,
C Am D7
Oh Willie McBride it all happened again,
G Fm C
And again, and again, and again, and again.
