Tim Baker premieres Beaumont-Hamel song White Cross

One of the province's finest songwriters has focused his skills on immortalizing in song one of Newfoundland and Labrador's defining, devastating moments: the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel.

Tim Baker,frontmanfor Hey Rosetta! performed his new tune White Cross for CBC. Spare, twinkling notes on a piano and Baker's voice trembling above it, are as fragile as the lives destroyed on July 1,1916.

You thank God that you were not the first/ You lay your bag against the black and bloody wall of earth ...

"All the statistics and everything are harrowing and horrible, but Ialways think about the individual'sexperience," said Tim Baker, of what he was trying to capture in White Cross.

"Even as a boy, you always think about what it would be like if you were there."

You can see their blue puttees/ Like they're back home in the waters of the bay, knee deep ...

Baker said he originally began the song to be part of a larger collaboration about the First World War, but when that fell through, he felt compelled to finish what he started.

"I dove into it, listened to some podcasts all about World War One, read some books, of course wandered through The Rooms," he said.

"Ijust kind of let what wanted to come out, come out, placing the listener there to feel the day themselves."

A pain you've never known/ Then a strange and radiant familiar glow/ Cold, calm water up your shins it crawls/ And off you're going, going home ...

Check out the video to listen for yourself.