No Man's Land (Eric Bogle song)

1976 song by Eric Bogle

"No Man's Land" (also known as "The Green Fields of France" or "Willie McBride") is a song written in 1976 by Scottish born Australian folk singer songwriter Eric Bogle, reflecting on the grave of a young man who died in World War I. Its chorus refers to two famous pieces of military music, the "Last Post" and the "Flowers of the Forest". Its melody, its refrain ("did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly"), and elements of its subject matter (a young man cut down in his prime) are similar to those of "Streets of Laredo", a North American cowboy ballad whose origins can be traced back to an 18th century English ballad called "The Unfortunate Rake" and the Irish Ballad "Lock Hospital". In 2009, Bogle told an audience in Weymouth that he had read about a girl who had been presented with a copy of the song by then prime minister Tony Blair, who called it "his favourite anti war poem". According to Bogle, the framed copy of the poem credited him, but stated that he had been killed in World War I. He said: "It's a song that was written about the military cemeteries in Flanders and Northern France. In 1976, my wife and I went to three or four of these military cemeteries and saw all the young soldiers buried there."

Bogle himself has stated that he had no particular soldier in mind in choosing the name "Willie McBride"; "McBride" was simply a convenient rhyme for "grave side", and he also wanted to give the soldier an Irish name as a counter to the anti Irish sentiment prevalent in Britain at the time. According to the song, the gravestone of the soldier, Willie McBride, says he was 19 years old when he died in 1916. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, there were eight soldiers named "William McBride", and a further six listed as "W. McBride", who died in France or Belgium during the First World War but none matches the soldier in the song. Two "William McBrides" and one "W. McBride" died in 1916 but one is commemorated in the Thiepval Memorial and has no gravestone. The other two are buried in the Authuille Military Cemetery but one was aged 21 and the age of the other is unknown. All three were from Irish regiments. Piet Chielens, coordinator of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Belgium, and organizer of yearly peace concerts in Flanders, once checked all 1,700,000 names that are registered with the Commonwealth War Commission. He found no fewer than ten Privates William McBride. Three of these William McBrides fell in 1916; two were members of an Irish Regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and died more or less in the same spot during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. One was 21, the other 19 years old. The 19 year old Private William McBride is buried in the Authuile Military Cemetery, near Albert and Beaumont Hamel, where the Inniskillen Fusiliers were deployed as part of the 29th Division. The name might have also been inspired by the naval pseudonym of Godfrey Herbert, the Captain of the Royal Navy, also nicknamed "Baralong Herbert" due to infamous Baralong incidents. He was referred to as Captain William McBride through the war by the British admiralty and other authorities when mentioning the commander of the Baralong, to prevent any retaliation from the Germans should they reveal his identity upon capture.