A MUSICIAN has released a Christmas single to highlight homelessness.

Cardboard Street, by John Watts and his band Fischer-Z, is about an ex-soldier living on the streets in Brighton.

John, who has lived in Brighton for 40 years, said he was inspired to write the song by a real person.

He said: “It’s half fact and half fiction.

“I saw an ambulance and police pulling up outside the Subway on North Street to collect a homeless man.

“A woman and child were looking at him and when he saw them, his face lit up.

“So I had the idea that his one hope was seeing his wife and child, and tried to imagine what the best story would be.

“Unfortunately in reality they don’t all have such a happy ending.”

John said the song is about a homeless soldier who is unable to adjust to normal life after fighting in Afghanistan.

He said: “The idea of Cardboard Street came from looking at statistics about ex-military people on the streets.

“When they come back they have survival skills, and so they think they can manage living on the street.

“There is still such a gap between the rich and the poor in Brighton.

“At Christmas the whole of the city centre looks like twinkle town, and there’s such a contrast between that and someone who is really unhappy.”

John said he is not aiming for a Christmas number one, but he hopes the song will make people think.

He said: “That’s the whole point of art for me.

“Our society has become much less human. Once you start stepping over people in the street, that’s really worrying – you can’t take that sort of thing for granted. Unless we have a more human politics we are never going to solve the problem.”

Cardboard Street is available to download on iTunes, Amazon Music and Apple Music.