Green Fields of France
Das Lied The Green Fields of France heißt mit Originaltitel No Man's Land und ist auch als Willie McBride bekannt. Es wurde 1976 von dem schottisch-australischen Sänger und Texter Eric Bogle geschrieben und beschreibt Gedanken über einen jungen Mann, der im Ersten Weltkrieg fiel.
Aufnahmen
- Celtic Thunder
- Celtic Tenors
- The Chieftains
- The Corries
- Jake Burns
- Johnny Cash: The Streets Of Laredo (eine Interpretation über das Schicksal eines jungen Cowboys)
- The Fureys
- Dropkick Murphys
- John McDermott
- Prussian Blue
- Plethyn: walisische Übersetzung: „Gwaed ar eu Dwylo“ (Blut auf ihren Händen)
- Skrewdriver (1992)
- The Men They Couldn't Hang
- The Fureys und Davey Arthur
- Saga
- An Cat Dubh
- „Es ist an der Zeit“ ist eine freie deutsche Nachdichtung von Hannes Wader (1980)
- Stephan Eicher
- The High Kings
- The Handsome Young Strangers
- Clare Bowditch, Tim Rogers and Gotye
- The Porters
- Fist of Steel
- Tommy Makem
- Angelic Upstarts
- Eric Fish, in der Nachdichtung von Hannes Wader
- Frank Rennicke
- Asynja - Green fields of France
- The Sandsacks
- Brassknuckle Boys -2009
- Stomper 98
Text
- Well how do you do Private William McBride,
- Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
- And rest for awhile beneath the warm summer sun,
- I've been walking all day and now I'm nearly done
- I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
- When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916;
- Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
- Or, young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Kehrreim:
- Did they beat the drum 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?“
- Did you leave 'ere a wife or a sweetheart behind?
- In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
- And although you died back in 1916,
- In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
- Or are you a stranger without even a name,
- Enclosed forever behind a glass pane,
- In an old photograph, torn, and battered and stained,
- And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Kehrreim:
- Ah the sun now it shines on these green fields of France,
- The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance,
- And look how the sun shines from under the clouds;
- There's no gas, no barbed wire, there're no guns firing now.
- But here in this graveyard is still No Man's Land,
- The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
- To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
- To a whole generation that was butchered and damned.
Kehrreim:
- Ah, young Willie McBride, I can't help wonder why,
- Did all those who lay here really know why they died?
- And did they believe when they answered the call,
- Did they really believe that this war would end war?
- For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
- The killing and dying were all done in vain,
- For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
- And again and again and again and again.
Kehrreim:
