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2026 · From the album back to life - Single

back to life

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04:15 Runtime

The reading

A cover of Opus's 1985 stadium anthem that treats collective euphoria, the moment a crowd and a band lock into the same feeling, as the definition of being alive

02 · Interpretation

HAN's 'back to life': the crowd as the point

E Editorial Desk Jul 21, 2026

The song is a reworking of the 1985 Opus hit commonly known as "Live Is Life," retitled here as "back to life" and released by HAN in June 2026. The bones are the same: a chant, a crowd noise, a simple thesis repeated until it becomes a slogan. What HAN does with those bones is where the interpretation lives.

The opening is not a lyric so much as a summons. The nonsense syllables ("Nanananana") are the sound a stadium makes when it does not need words, and the parenthetical "all together now" makes the intention explicit. Before any argument is made, the song has already staged its answer: whatever life is, it is plural.

The first verse lays out a small ethics of performance. When "we all give the power" and "give the best" every minute, without holding back for "the rest," then everyone receives in equal measure. The logic is circular on purpose. Giving and getting are the same action seen from two sides of the stage. The line "every song everybody sings" collapses the distinction between the band and the audience; the song is not being performed at anyone, it is being performed by everyone.

The chorus is almost a definition exercise. Life is the power felt together, life is standing up and dancing, life is "the feeling of the people," life is "the feeling of the band." Each clause offers a slightly different location for the same sensation, and the cumulative effect is to insist that the feeling has no single owner. It exists in the loop between stage and floor. The tautology "life is life" stops sounding empty once the verses have filled in what the second "life" means: not biology, not biography, but this specific communal charge.

The turn at the end

The final verse is where the song stops being pure celebration and becomes something more interesting. The tense shifts. "You call when it's over, you call it should last." The power was given, the best was given, every song was sung, all in the past. The line "every minute of the future is a memory of the past" is the hinge: the ecstatic present of the earlier verses is being viewed from after the fact. What felt like a permanent condition ("life is life") turns out to have been an event with a beginning and an end.

This is what gives the chant its second life in a cover context. Sung in 2026, more than four decades after the original, the song is already a memory of itself. The audience knows the "nanananana" before it arrives. The retitling as "back to life" gestures at this: the song is being returned to circulation, resurrected as the kind of communal object it always described. A cover of a crowd anthem is, by definition, a memory of the past being lived again in the present.

Why it endures

"Live Is Life" has survived because it does one thing with unusual efficiency. It provides a mass singalong that requires no linguistic fluency (the hook is syllables), no cultural knowledge (the sentiment is universal to the point of vacancy), and no emotional preparation (it is happy from bar one). Football crowds adopted it. Wedding DJs kept it. Its meaning is functional rather than poetic: it works when sung together, and it means whatever the room needs it to mean.

HAN's version, judging by the lyric alone, does not try to complicate that function. It preserves the chant, preserves the ethic of collective giving, and preserves the melancholy tail where the party is remembered rather than lived. That last part is easy to miss on a first listen, but it is the reason the song has more depth than its reputation suggests. The euphoria is real, and it is also already a souvenir.

Themes catalogued

collective euphoria performance and audience nostalgia presence and memory

Track Info

Released Jun 11, 2026

Album back to life - Single

Length 04:15

Listen elsewhere

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03 · Lyrics

"back to life"

Nanananana

Nanananana (all together now)

Nanananana

Life (nanananana)

Life is life (nanananana)

Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)

Liiiiiiiife (nanananana)

When we all give the power

We all give the best

Every minute of an hour

Don't think about the rest

And you all get the power

You all get the best

When everyone gets everything

And every song everybody sings

And it's life (nanananana)

Life is life (nanananana)

Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)

Life is life when we all feel the power

Life is life come on, stand up and dance

Life is life when the feeling of the people

Life is life is the feeling of the band

When we all give the power

We all give the best

Every minute of an hour

Don't think about the rest

Then you all get the power

You all get the best

When everyone gives everything

And every song everybody sings

And it's life (nanananana)

Life is life (nanananana)

Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)

Life is life (nanananana)

Life (nanananana)

(Nanananana)

Life (nanananana)

Life is life (nanananana)

Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)

Live is life (nanananana)

And you call when it's over

You call it should last

Every minute of the future

Is a memory of the past

Cause we all gave the power

We all gave the best

And everyone gave everything

And every song everybody sang

Life is life

Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.

04 · FAQ

Frequently asked

Is HAN's 'back to life' a cover of Opus's 'Live Is Life'?

The lyrics match the 1985 Opus anthem almost line for line, including the 'nanananana' chant, the 'labadab dab dab life' hook, and the verses about giving the power and getting the best. HAN's 2026 release appears to be a reworking of that song, retitled 'back to life.'

What does 'labadab dab dab life' actually mean in the song?

It is a scat phrase, not a lyric with literal meaning. Like the 'nanananana' passages, it functions as a vocal hook designed to be sung back by a crowd without needing translation, which is part of why the original became a stadium and football-terrace staple.

What is the meaning of the line 'every minute of the future is a memory of the past'?

It appears in the final verse, after the tense shifts from present to past ('we all gave the power'). The line reframes the earlier euphoria as something already remembered, suggesting that the communal high of the concert only fully exists once it is over and being recalled.

Why is the song called 'back to life' instead of 'Life Is Life'?

The retitling suggests a resurrection or return, which fits a cover of a decades-old anthem being brought back into circulation. It also picks up on the song's closing turn, where the celebration is remembered from after the fact and effectively brought back to life each time it is sung again.

What does the chorus mean when it says 'life is the feeling of the band'?

The chorus offers several locations for the same feeling: the power shared by the crowd, the act of standing and dancing, the feeling of the people, and the feeling of the band. Placing the band's feeling and the people's feeling side by side treats the concert as a single circuit where neither side is the source.

Why has 'Life Is Life' been adopted by football crowds and singalongs for decades?

Its hook is syllables rather than words, so it crosses language barriers instantly, and its message is a generic affirmation that fits almost any celebration. The verses even describe the mechanic explicitly: 'every song everybody sings.' It is a song about mass singing that also works as one.