Sgt. MacKenzie

"Sgt. MacKenzie" is a lament written and sung by Joseph Kilna MacKenzie. It has been used in films and television, as well as covered on multiple albums.

Joseph MacKenzie wrote the haunting lament after the death of his wife, Christine, and in memory of his great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who along with hundreds of his brothers-in-arms from the Elgin-Rothes area in Moray, Scotland went to fight in World War I. Sergeant MacKenzie was bayoneted to death at age 33, while defending one of his badly injured fellow soldiers during hand-to-hand trench warfare.His grave stone is engraved that he died on 9th April 1917.Template:His grave stone=June 2017

The track was then included in his band Clann An Drumma's album Tried and True (2001). While working on the film We Were Soldiers (2002), director Randall Wallace received a CD of the album and was haunted by the emotion and spirit of reverence captured in "Sgt. MacKenzie". He arranged for Joe and his band mate Donnie MacNeil, who played the pipes, to re-record "Sgt. MacKenzie" with the backing of an 80-piece orchestra and the United States Military Academy Choir at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. The lament was introduced into the film during key scenes, with MacKenzie singing on his own, and on the last track of the film with the orchestra and choir. It is mistakenly believed the original version was in Scottish (Gaelic), but it was in Scots.

The original pipe score was written and played by Seoras Wallace, when Joe MacKenzie read his poem to him and Tu-Bardh Wilson in a house in Govan many years ago. The original recording is on the ClanWallace live album, and it was this recording that inspired Randall Wallace and Mel Gibson to contact Seoras about using the track on the film We Were Soldiers (2002). Seoras waived his rights but remains the holder of the production rights returned to him three years after the film's release.

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