A few months ago, under the autumn sky of Amman at the ancient Roman Theatre, I performed We Love Life for the first time. The stones of that place have absorbed countless stories, and that evening they received another.

We Love Life takes its words from the Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry has long carried the dignity, pain, and ethos of a people whose story echoes far beyond their land. This piece is dedicated to every Palestinian life, both those living and those taken. It speaks to the genocide in Palestine, not through direct speech. After more than two years of struggling to find words for what has been unfolding, I realised that music was the only way I could express the many thoughts and emotions felt by myself and by so many others watching from a distance.

This composition is deeply visual in its conception. You will hear hints of sirens subtly embedded in the arrangement, cries of mothers woven into the spaces between phrases, and a dissonance in the strings reflecting the dissonance of our time. A time in which white is made to appear black and black is made to appear white. A time when language itself feels compromised, yet music still carries truth.

Performing this piece live was essential to me. The breath of the audience, the night air, and the vulnerability of an unrepeatable moment are all part of the music. It was made by human hearts, hands, and voices in one particular moment, shared by performers and audience together.

Mahmoud Darwish once wrote, in words not sung in this piece but ever present within it:

“We have on this earth everything that makes life worth living.”

This line has stayed with me. It is neither naïve nor sentimental. To love life in the face of attempted annihilation is not denial. It is courage. It is a refusal to allow brutality to define the human spirit.

Simply put, We Love Life is a hope. A hope that even in the darkest moments, something within us still insists on beauty, truth, and life itself.

Sami Yusuf