Is “The Ballad of Terry Fox” the best song Bryan Adams ever recorded?

By Steve Newton

When I went for a walk in my North Delta ‘hood today I came across a placard promoting next month’s Terry Fox Run for cancer research, and since Terry’s one of my biggest heroes, I took a photo of myself giving the event a hearty thumbs up.

Then when I got home and was searching around on YouTube for the latest AI-generated video of patriotic Canadian beavers in RCMP uniforms getting ready to take on Trump’s tariffs, I came across a brand new song by Bryan Adams called “The Ballad of Terry Fox”.

I’ve listened to it a few times now and really like it. It’s catchy like Adams’ best tunes, and the lyrics really capture the essence of what Fox and his 1980 Marathon of Hope were all about, I think.

The wind was cold and thin – out on the highway’s edge
A solitary figure with a solemn pledge
One leg of bone – one leg of steel – a skip and a heavy heel
Brought up in BC and Manitoba – he didn’t fail to make us feel

The song was written for the upcoming documentary Run Terry Run, which uses recently recovered archival footage to offer an inside look at the Port Coquitlam-raised athlete, who made a valiant effort to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research after his leg was amputated due to osteosarcoma.

Hats off to Bryan Adams for paying such heartfelt tribute to Terry Fox, who–after doing “the best any human can”–died from cancer in 1981 at the age of 22. I think it might be his best song ever.