Nearly four decades. That is how long Andy Koh, a Dallas pediatric oncologist who started writing songs as a Harvard undergraduate in the late 1980s, carried some of the material on his debut album before it reached a studio. He wrote the title track last, once enough time had passed to see what the whole trip had been, and he considers the long route the only one that ever made sense.
When something is slow in coming, the usual advice is to stop holding your breath, since it may never arrive. Koh’s chorus turns that warning into an instruction: “Hold your breath / Cause we’re taking the long way home.” The wait becomes part of the plan, a breath held on purpose by someone sure the destination exists.
The rest of the song keeps that confidence moving. The verses count up what wears people down, broken souls and aching hearts, and the chorus answers with a promise that every small lie will be refused and the fools shaken loose along the way. The bridge lets the doubt in plainly. Koh pictures himself falling in line, his compass gone and his timing lost, unsure he can get off the ground, and he settles the matter with a simple resolve to do what’s right.
For a record this long in coming, the track moves fast. Bassist Sean Hurley and drummer Jake Reed keep the rhythm leaning forward, and the sessions set out to capture what these songs had sounded like in Koh’s head for decades. Nearly forty years is a long time to hold a breath, and on “Taking the Long Way” Koh finally lets it out at a full run.
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