Words by Yunus Emre (13th century) and music by Latif Bolat

Latif: “My journey of devotional music started on a summer afternoon, in drizzling rain, in California’s Santa Barbara mountains. I found myself in my car, crying and smiling at the same time as I listened to the incredible Sabri Brothers from Pakistan. My heart immediately found a home in this ecstatic Sufi Qawwali singing, even though I didn’t know a single word of Urdu. From that moment my view of the world changed and I have been studying and performing the Sufi music of my Turkish roots every since.

“The poet Yunus Emre lived 800 years ago, but he came from the same part of Turkey and the same nomadic background as I did. He wrote this song at the end of his life, and his ideas resonate with me very much.”

Recorded live at St George’s Church, Kemptown, Brighton, 18 October 2008

My fleeting life has come and gone
A wind that blows and passes by.
I feel it has been all too brief,
Just like the blinking of an eye.

To this true word God will attest:
The Spirit is the Body's guest,
Some day it will vacate the breast
As birds, freed from their cages, fly.

Life, my good man, can be likened
To the land that the farmer sows:
Lying scattered all over the soil,
Some of the seeds sprout, but some die.

If you visit and give water
To a sick man who needs care,
With God's wine, he shall hail you there
One day when you soar to the sky.

(Translated by Talat Halman)


www.latifbolat.com