A few days ago I said I'd been looking for a song about world war one trenches and Canadians. Well I found it- its by a group called Tangle foot and here are the words
Vimy Lyrics and Music: Steve and Rob Ritchie

Chorus Raise your flask, aim your rifles high I've had a dream, I've seen we three should have no fear at all You'll die in Kenora, Billy; you, Jim, in Winnipeg And I will end my days in Montreal

These people come to see me in my bedroom With faces dim and names I can't recall Some woman with a golden ring she comes to comb my hair Then she dresses me and walks me down the hall Well I can still put one foot before the other, If someone points the way for me to go Today the sun is shining and a crowd has gathered 'round They put circles of red flowers on the stone

Chorus

Old Jim Rankin stood behind me in the tunnel Spat on his bayonet and he wiped it with his hand And he rocked from heel to heel, blew out his cheeks and whistled While we waited for the signal to advance Jimmy Rankin he was twenty and we thought him an old man He said he'd fathered children by the score By girls back in Winnipeg and girls in Calais And he bragged, by God, there'd be a hundred more

Chorus

And Billy Whitefish from Kenora: jet black hair and eyes like coal We all called him 'Chief' behind his back He never smiled or laughed or joked or spoke that much at all Just sat and smoked while we waited to attack Well they poured shells over our heads into the hillside In thirty yards our kit and boots were full of mud But as we made the ridge, Jimmy went down on both knees And he coughed into his sleeve and there was blood

Chorus

The last sound I ever heard was an explosion And bodies flew like apples thrown by boys play When I could see again, I was alone Jimmy wasn't there And a crater marked the hillside where he'd lain And Billy Whitefish from Kenora wound up in a German trench Where he captured their machine gun all alone And held them off until his ammunition was all spent And they swarmed around and they hacked him to the bone

Chorus

Now every day I still remember what I told them My two friends who that day from this earth were torn And the craters and the trenches where they died now bear the names Of the cities and the towns where they were born

Chorus