Lyr Req: Across the Hills of Home (Eric Bogle)

Subject: Lyr. Request--Bogle: Across the Hills of Hom
From:
Date: 30 Apr 98 - 10:29 AM

I have fallen in love w/ Eric Bogle's , but can't understand all the lyrics. Can anyone help out?

bbc

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Across the Hills of Home (Eric Bogle)
From:
Date: 19 Dec 03 - 11:39 PM

I'm looking for a song that Eric Bogle wrote. I cannot find the words anywhere. I thought it was called No Mans Land, but that is basically Willie McBride. The song started out something like this...

......on Christmas Day
on the Western front, the guns all died away
Lying in the mud on bags of sand
We heard the germans sing from No mans land....

The chorus go on like this....

Silent Night, no cannons roar...a King is born of peace forever more
Alls calm alls bright all brothers hand in hand...
A soldiers song of peace.....etc..

Do you know where I can find the words to this song? If you do, can you please email me as soon as you can. My name is Sean, and my email address is [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Across the Hills of Home (Eric Bogle)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 12:30 AM

No Man's Land is the title that Eric Bogle gave his own song, though it has often been called Willie McBride (and other things) by people who thought they knew better than the man who wrote it.

That isn't relevant to your question, though. Neither is Bogles's song Across the Hills of Home, which is a poem written by one James MacArthur, which Bogle set to music, and which has nothing to do with the Great War.

The song you are looking for, judging by the lines you quote, isn't one of Eric's at all, but is Cormac McConnell's Christmas 1914; one of a great many songs written relatively recently about that event. There is some doubt about the title, it seems, and it has been posted here two or three times; once as Christmas 1915. When so many songs are written on the same subject, I suppose that confusion is bound to arise. So far as I know, he himself called it Christmas in the Trenches, but several other people have written songs by that title too, of course.

There are quite a lot of songs posted round here, and you can find most of them by typing a phrase into the search engine that you'll find on the main Forum page. I found McConnell's, for instance, by searching for on bags of sand, but several other approaches would have given the same result.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Across the Hills of Home (Eric Bogle)
From: bbc
Date: 20 Dec 03 - 07:07 AM

Clicking on the title from Malcolm's post takes one to another thread which gives the lyrics to Across the Hills of Home. Thanks to both Malcolm & rich r for your help w/ my request! Haunting song, that.

best,

bbc