Any time a songwriter puts pen to paper, he or she hopes the result will be something special.
Sometimes, that something special is found in sharing a personal insight, sometimes it’s a huge hit that simply happened, sometimes it’s a song that simply strikes a chord with many.
For Nova Scotia singer/songwriter J.P. Cormier, the latter is the case. Ever since he penned “Hometown Battlefield” and posted to Facebook and uploaded to YouTube, comments and compliments have poured in.
The song, which has been embraced by Canadian and American veterans alike, is about what happens after a soldier leaves a war zone and the after effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“Hometown Battlefield” is one of the tracks on Cormier’s new album The Chance, from which he will perform when he visits the Canmore Legion, Thursday (April 16) as part of a new Canada/U.S. tour.
The fact that his Facebook and YouTube (including lyrics) posts have seen more than a million views has surprised Cormier.
“It’s been a shock,” he said. “But the real shock is the underlying message from around the world is ‘nobody said that before.’
“Every day I get dozens of messages from people. Every single day. A ton of Americans have said ‘I can’t believe a Canadian folk singer understands what we’re going through.’”
“Hometown Battlefield” relates to a soldier wounded by an IED (improvised explosive device) who comes home from battle, but can’t adjust to civilian life and his wife and children find him a changed man. His only comfort then becomes a bottle and gun, memories of dust and death remain, and at times, there is an untimely death.
“The reason people are dying from PTSD is that nobody is saying anything,” said Cormier, who himself toured Afghanistan as part of a services tour in 2007 and, after a photographer and an export property manager who stepped on an IED were killed, was on hand for a Canadian Forces ramp ceremony (where coffins are loaded aboard an aircraft for a flight home).
“We lost two people while I was there,” he said. “They weren’t going to let us see it at first. They kept us on the plane and shades were drawn, but everybody knew about it and they did let us. I may be the only civilian to attend a ramp ceremony and it was pretty touching. It was hard. We brought him (property manager) home with us.”
The ramp ceremony, though, while touching, did not prompt Cormier to write “Hometown Battlefield.” The song was written a little more than a year ago.
“Nothing prompted me,” he said, “I don’t write that way. I get my songs from God. It was during a spring tour last year that I heard two or three times that soldiers had killed themselves and it just came to mind.”
Since being inundated by those wanting to comment, Cormier said, “it’s been shocking and a little frightening. I’ve never felt worthy of being a spokesperson. I’ve never shot anybody, I’ve never been a soldier.
“The trouble is, even our own organizations don’t do enough. They spend their time fighting with each other instead of helping. There’s a lot of infighting and it’s frustrating.
“And the government doesn’t help. We have no government, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen and we need Harper out of there. He’s on a personal power trip and it’s not just not giving soldiers help, the arts are being cut … everything.
“I don’t know why my message caught on, but the more people that know about PTSD the better. The public has to stand up because the government won’t.”
“Hometown Battlefield” coalesced into The Chance album, said Cormier. “I never stop writing or recording or working on other people’s albums. I’ve been doing this for 33 years and for most of those years I toured 300 days a year.
“I cut that back to 250 days after I was in a bad truck wreck and broke my back.”
Currently, Cormier has 16 albums for purchase, while his first seven or eight are out of circulation.
The Chance is a collection of songs about the chances people take and the choices they make – the chance people take in joining the military being but one example.
“The Legend of McArthur’s Mine” is a fictional story in which the protagonist faces the choice of turning away from God – and then doesn’t. “The Unfinished Song” is about a chance encounter with the family member of an old flame – who took the opportunity to apologize for how things went down, when he could just as easily have thrown fuel on an old fire.
“House of Plywood” is a tribute to a fellow Maritime artist who took plenty of chances in the quest to stay true to his values: Stompin’ Tom Connors.
