Maybe this is what N.S. needs? An upbeat rap video about a nursing home

Classified's new music video was filmed less than three months ago, but already it feels like a relic of a former time.

It shows a pack of smiling kids bounding into a continuing care home in Enfield, N.S., to spend the afternoon eating pizza and playing games with residents.

The Nova Scotia musician had no idea a gathering like that would soon be unthinkable as the province went under lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. Many vulnerable people are now isolated in long-term care homes that have been hardest hit by the virus.  

"Taking kids into an old people's home just is the last thing anyone is going to do nowadays. So originally the initial thing was like, is this kind of a bad look?" Luke Boyd, aka Classified, told CBC's Mainstreet. 

But the music video for Good News, filmed at Magnolia Continuing Care on Feb. 20, also feels like it was written for this very moment as the province grapples with one tragedy after another.

"My hope for the video was to kind of show … look how quickly things can go bad. But at the same time things go back to good just as quick," Boyd said.

Six people have tested positive for COVID-19 at Magnolia. But the four staff members and two residents have since recovered and there are no current cases at the facility, a spokesperson said.

It's been a very different story at the Northwood long-term care facility in Halifax where 40 residents have died. As of Friday, there have been 46 COVID-related deaths in Nova Scotia and 1,008 cases.

Boyd worried releasing the upbeat music video would be insensitive at a time when so many families are forced apart from their loved ones.

But after consulting with his friends and family, he decided the song would hopefully make people feel good and show a side of long-term care that we don't see during a pandemic.

"These are real people that are in these homes," he said. "[It] just kind of puts some realness back on to what these numbers and all these news stories we keep hearing about."

Tracey Tulloch, communications co-ordinator for Rosecrest, which owns Magnolia, said she's glad the video was released now. The province is in desperate need of good news after the deadly mass shooting last month, followed by the military helicopter crash that killed three Nova Scotians and the search for a missing three-year-old boy in Truro.

The facility initially planned to hold a pizza party so residents could view the video.

That can't happen now, so recreation staff are showing it to residents in between their busy schedules setting up window visits and video calls with family members, Tulloch said. 

"The ones who have seen it have just been thrilled and, you know, just the smiles on their faces that you see in the video they're so genuine because they really had a fun time," she said. 

The initial outbreak at Magnolia involved three staff members and two residents. Another staff then contracted the virus from community spread but is now back at work, Tulloch said. 

"When we had positive cases of COVID in our facility it was particularly isolating and a little bit stressful for them all," she said. "Like the message from the music video says, those little things are what you've got to focus on and that's what's kind of getting them through."

Boyd was inspired to write Good News last November after feeling overwhelmed by the negativity he saw in the news and among his friends on social media.

The fact that it came out in the middle of a pandemic has him wondering if there are larger powers at work.

"I'm not the most religious person, but part of me is this like something from God? Like why did I make this song? Why did I go shoot this video like this and why did it come out like this?"

Boyd admits it was one of the hardest shoots he's ever done, wrangling a group of kids between the ages of three and 11, including his own daughters, who are 11, nine and six. 

The pandemic has meant he's spending much more time at home with them these days. They're all bored out of their minds sometimes, he said, but that boredom only lasts until someone suggests heading outside for an impromptu family basketball game.

"I know there's lots to complain about, but we have a lot to be grateful for," Boyd said. "And that's kind of the whole point of the song is even though we're going through bad things or bad things are happening in the world, there's still so many amazing small things that happen daily that we kind of just forget about and kind of take for granted, honestly."