N.S. singer-songwriter dedicates song on record to those who served

Cape Breton singer-songwriter Jimmy Rankin released his album “Harvest Highway” last October, but on that record includes a heartfelt tribute that hits home around this time of year.

The track “Missing at the Somme” sticks out from other songs on the album, as it is dedicated to those who served and sacrificed for the country.

Rankin says he came up with the idea for the song when working on material for his album with his friend and fellow Cape Breton musician, Stevie MacDougall. He says he wanted to create something as a tribute for those who died in battle.

“I wrote it here in the living room one afternoon, I was working on material for my new record and I wanted to include a song about, sort of an anti-war song,” said Rankin.

“I started talking about all of the war veterans, First and Second World War veterans, when I was a kid. Every Nov. 11 all the vets from all over the county would march up and down the different streets and they would stop in front of the cenotaph and they would lay wreaths.”

Rankin adds each soldier has their own story, and for many of those who fought in the First or Second World Wars, it was their first time out of Canada.

“I often wondered about these guys, they were country kids, and probably a lot if them had never really been anywhere and next thing you know, they were on a train heading to Halifax and then on a ship, and then they were over on the battlefields in Europe,” he said.

The song is about soldiers on the way to the Battle of the Somme, an infamous battle in France which led to many casualties in the First World War.

“There’s something like over a million casualties over the course of a couple of weeks like either killed or wounded, and out of that, there were close to 25,000 Canadian soldiers killed in that battle,” said Rankin.

Rankin says he hopes the song will help remind people of the struggles veterans had to endure during the war.

“I hope that this song will remind people of the senselessness of these kinds of war, and people should not forget what these people had to go through for that for us, so lest we forget,” said Rankin.

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