"Willie McBride" (also known as "The Green Fields of France" or "No Man's Land") is a song written in 1976 by Scottish 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 and 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 "The Streets of Laredo", a North American cowboy ballad whose origins can be traced back to an 18th-century English ballad called "The Unfortunate Rake". Also by Eric Bogle in this section:       "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda".