Why Old Men Cry Lyrics

I walked from Ypres to Passchendale In the first gray days of spring Through flatland fields where life goes on And carefree children sing Round rows of ancient tombstones Where a generation lies And at last I understood Why old men cry My mother's father walked these fields Some eighty years ago He was half the age that I am now No way that he could know That his unborn grandchild someday Would cross his path this way And stand here Where his fallen comrades lay He'd been dead a quarter century By the time that I was born The mustard gas which swept the trenches Ripped apart his lungs Another name and number Among millions there who died And at last I understood Why old men cry I walked from Leith to Newtongrange At the turning of the year Through desolate communities And faces gaunt with fear Past bleak, abandoned pitheads Where rich seams of coal still lie And at last I understood Why old men cry My father helped to win the coal That lay neath Lothian's soil A life of bitter hardship The reward for years of toil But he tried to teach his children There was more to life than this Working all your life To make some fat cat rich I walked from Garve to Ullapool As the dawn light kissed the earth And breathed the awesome beauty Of this land that gave me birth I looked into the future Saw a people proud and free As I looked along Loch Broom Out to the sea