All the peace had turned to madness
Christmas day was done and gone
There’d be no more football matches
On the land they called the Somme

Men shared life with rats
Made tea both black and strong
For It was a long hard cold winter
In that place they called the Somme

Seemed that noise was everlasting
Machine guns and shelling carried on
While exhausted men slept in trenches
On the battlefields of the Somme

And the life blood of their Nations
Stained the ground and then was gone
Unmarked graves lay all around them
Beneath the mud there on the Somme

And every year since in November
Through a hundred years and more to come
We honour those who fought and died there
In that Hell they called the Somme