Mercy River was written as a direct result of the My Lai incident that happened in 1969 in Vietnam. This was when Charlie Company went into the Village and killed over 500 villagers including women, children and Grandparents. Not one of the villagers had fired upon the soldiers. The soldiers raped, tortured, and murdered in a most atrocious evil slaughter. A US helicopter pilot by the name of Hugh Thompson stopped it by flying his helicopter between the Soldiers and and villagers and threatened to fire upon them if they did not stop. He received death threats for exposing them. Read the story here :http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre. They successfully covered it up for a year until another soldier with the help of Seymour Hersch exposed it and an investigation took place.  I had some amazing American people living with me at the time who risked everything to come to Canada because they did not believe in the war or the politics behind it. Some were disowned by their parents and not welcome home. These people had formed a band called Rose with me as the singer and was my first band. I loved them and they helped me out during a tough time. We sat together in the Cranberry Hotel  in  Cedar alongside the Nanaimo River the night we received the news of the exposure with tears in our eyes and wrote this song together. It's about vindication, mercy and forgiveness.