A word of warning - if you sing "No Mans Land," sometimes known as Willie McBride, or The Green fields Of France, do NOT use lyrics you find on the internet - they are absolute rubbish. I down-loaded lyrics for this song, then checked it against the original version by Eric Bogle. Whole lines had been changed -others lost entirely. It's the worst case of screwed up lyrics I've ever seen - so to everybody, I would suggest you check the words with Eric Bogle's original version on Youtube - you may be in for a nasty surprise. I know this can sometimes be passed off as "The Folk Process," but I'm talking of whole lines being reversed, dropped, changed and generally screwed around with. Here, near as dammit are the original words.

NO MAN'S LAND
(Eric Bogle)

How do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here, down by your grave side
And I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day Lord, and I'm nearly done
I see by your grave stone your were only nineteen,
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 sound the last post in chorus
Did the pipes play "The Flooers of 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 nineteen
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 have vanished, long under the plow,
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,
Did they really believe that this war would end war
The suffering, the sorrow, the glory the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again, and again and again
CHORUS

---

Note from Joe Offer 18 Mar 2013 (also posted in the DT Attributions thread):
"No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle
filename[ NOMANLD
Looks like an exact transcription of the lyrics from ericbogle.net - just one typo in the second line - the word "gy" is obviously incorrect. I question "no Willie McBride" in the first line of the fourth verse, but that's also what they have on the Bogle Website.
BobKnight's transcription and the DT version are essentially the same, with a few minor differences. I will agree that Bob's transcription is generally closer to to the lyrics Bogle sings on the By Request CD.
Note that ericbogle.net claims to be the official Eric Bogle Website. It does seem authentic, but note that it is located in South Africa. Even "official Websites are often wrong.