In December of 2021, a friend sent me a few lines of poetry he wrote after witnessing an unhoused couple outside his building during the winter. I interpreted his words in the context of how he recently returned to Edmonton after living overseas for a number of years and had been living downtown, then moved to the Whyte Avenue area, where the unhoused struggle equally in both locations.

I’ve addressed this topic before through my songs, and felt an urgency to release “Long Way Around” as a single after yet another winter in Edmonton with an increase in the unhoused crisis as a result of systemic issues those in power seem unable or unwilling to address with any efficacy. I hope this song raises conversations and awareness of how, in a city so full of abundance, there can be such despair – and how any of us can experience a reversal of circumstances.

The song placed as a semi-finalist in three categories of the 2022 UK Songwriting Contest.

“Long Way Around” is currently available at my Bandcamp site: