"Rise Again" is a song recorded by Canadian music group

The Rankin Family The Rankin Family (originally known as The Rankins) are a Canadian musical family group from Mabou, Nova Scotia. The group has won many Canadian music awards, including 15 East Coast Music Awards, six Juno Awards, four Society of Composers, Author ...

. It was released in 1993 as the first single from their third studio album, '' North Country''. It peaked in the top 10 on the ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, and was a Top 20 hit on the magazine's pop chart and a Top 40 hit on its country chart.

Background and writing

The song was written by

Leon Dubinsky Leon Dubinsky (4 July 1941 – 17 January 2023) was a Canadian actor, theatre director and composer from Sydney, Nova Scotia. Dubinsky first became prominent in music with the regional touring band Buddy and the Boys in the 1970s and 1980s,"St ...

, a songwriter from Sydney,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, for a 1984 stage musical titled ''The Rise and Follies of Cape Breton'',"Discovering Nova Scotia"
. ''Reform Judaism Online'', Summer 2007. as an anthem of resilience and hope at a time when Cape Breton Island was going through an economic crisis. According to Dubinsky, the song is about "the cycles of immigration, the economic insecurity of living in Cape Breton, the power of the ocean, the meaning of children, and the strength of home given to us by our families, our friends and our music."

Other versions

The Rankin Family's rendition, with its lead vocal performed by Raylene Rankin, popularized the song across Canada. As well as the Rankins, the song was also frequently performed in concert by Rita MacNeil, and recorded for her 2001 album ''Mining the Soul''; it was also recorded by

Anne Murray Morna Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945) is a retired Canadian singer. Her albums, consisting primarily of pop, country, and adult contemporary music, have sold over 55 million copies worldwide during her over 40-year career. Murray was the fir ...

for her television special ''Anne Murray in Nova Scotia'', with guest vocal appearances by MacNeil, the Rankins and The Men of the Deeps. The song has also been recorded and performed by Irish singing group, Celtic Thunder.

In popular culture

Because of the song's uplifting spiritual themes, it has been frequently performed by church choirs in Canada. Because of Dubinsky's

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

faith, it has also sometimes been performed by Jewish groups at commemorations of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. During the

COVID-19 pandemic in Canada The COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (). It is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). Most cases over the course of the pandemic have been in Ontario, Que ...

, the song was covered by Voices Rock Medicine, an ad hoc choir of women health care providers who recorded their parts virtually due to the

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dis ...

restrictions on public gatherings."5 music videos made in isolation that cheered us up this week"
CBC Music, April 9, 2020. Their version was included in the television special '' Stronger Together, Tous Ensemble''.

Chart performance

Year-end charts

References

{{Authority control 1993 songs 1993 singles The Rankin Family songs EMI Records singles