At five in the morning As daylight was dawning Harry Farr he was taken out From his cold cell He'd been filled up with morphine Oh the sights that he'd seen Bur Harry was sick Of the sounds of the shells
At first light we are told He refused a blindfold He stared at his comrades And he stood brave and tall The order was given His life cruelly taken And Harry was shot An example to all.
chorus Damn all the generals In their headquarters It would have been better If they'd never been born A sick man they accused A brave man they abused He was tied to a post And shot dead at dawn
The fat swarms of flies The curses the cries The dead and the dying Out in No Mans Land The artillery fire The rolls of barbed wire The bearers with stretchers Barely able to stand.
Out there in the trenches In the mud and the madness The shock of the shelling Made him sick of the fight Last night he was sentenced By a drumhead courtmartial To be tied to a post And shot at first light.
repeat chorus
Oh his wife sits at home She sits all alone They took her war pension To rub salt in her grief On Remembrance day morn Harry's still shot at dawn And the veterans march past Their commander in chief
So many years on All those soldiers have gone Young Harry's been pardoned With a stroke of a pen But what of the leaders Who send men to the slaughter? They are still free To start wars once again.
repeat chorus twice
huwpudner@ntlworld.com written sept 2006
Harry Farr was executed on the Somme in 1916 and was pardoned in 2006
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