Digital Tradition Mirror

No Man's Land (3)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

No Man's Land (3)
(Crawford Howard and Fintan Valaly)

Have you heard the old song about Willie Mc Bride?
 If I hear it again, it'll turn me insides!
For its sung in the Springtime and its sung in the Fall
 - And mostly by people who can't sing at all!
You go out for a drink on a Saturday night
 For a pint and a song, and things are alright
Until some drunken bowsey sits down by your side
 And he asks for the one about "Willie Mc Bride"!

Well you say you don't know it but this will not do
 For now he's determined to sing it to you
So he spills half your drink and starts off in a key
 That was never invented on land or on sea
And as time goes by sure the whole thing gets worse
 For you soon realise that he knows every verse!
With his arm round your shoulder - 'cos now he's your friend
 He's going to sing the damn thing to the end!

You go out to the Gents for a quarter of an hour
 And you watch the TV in the old public bar
And then you come back thinking that he will tire
 But he's still going on about gas and barbed wire!
And ten minutes later you're all in a trance
 For he's up to his oxters in the Green Fields of France
The crowd are all quiet, you wont hear a peep
Does he not realise they've all gone to sleep?

Ah Willie Mc Bride, why the hell did you die?
 The trouble you'd have saved if you'd come back alive
And got a wee job or signed "on the brew"*
 We'd not have to listen to songs about you!
But still I don't know but I'm glad that you're dead
 With the green fields of France piled on top of your head
 For the trouble you caused since the day that you died
 - Shooting's too good for you, Willie Mc Bride!

* Belfast slang for "on the dole". Pronounce "berew"!
MR
apr97

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!