Going back to "No Mans Land" by Eric Bogle, here are the words as actually written. It is amazing how many changes there are. The main one to me is in the way the chorus is sung, apart from obvious word changes the line, "Did the pipes play the FLOWERS of the forest" , flowers is pronounced "floures" and this word is drawn out when sung by Eric himself

Heres Erics original (which is by far my favourite).
"No Man's Land" as included in The "Eric Bogle Chord Songbook" (a book well worth purchasing, see website)
                  
Well how do you do; Private Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
and rest for a while neath the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19,
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
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 you, as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing the last post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined,
although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that loyal heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass frame,
In an old photograph all torn and tattered, and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame

Chorus

The sun shining down on the green fields of France,
There's a warm wind blows gently; and the red poppies dance,
The trenches have vanished; long under the plough,
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 that were butchered and damned.

Chorus

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died,
And did they really believe 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,
For Willie McBride it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Chorus