ABSTRACT
Eric Bogle wrote 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' in 1971 and 'No Man's Land' in 1975. Both compositions took some time to be 'discovered', but when they were they could be declared 'two of the most striking musical essays yet written on the futility of war', bearing out what W. B. Yeats had described as 'the intensity of the old ballad'. In addition to the timeless questions that are posed in 'No Man's Land' the reader/listener is also introduced to a universal character, Willie McBride. Bogle's method of personalising the historical experience, decoding something vast and indescribable like a war into a single individual, is at work again. Finbar Furey who sang the version of 'No Man's Land' that was to top the Irish charts recalls that 'Irish people took this song to their hearts.
