Partial Lyrics to 'One Life at A Time' by U2
One father shot
three children crying
if there is no law
is there no crime
if there is no hope
what's there to rhyme
history is written
one life at a time
ONE LIFE AT A TIME
It was written in response to the July 2025 killing of Awdah Hathaleen, who was a Palestinian activist and consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land".
“Hope and history rhyme” comes from Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy. Bono’s “what’s there to rhyme” doesn’t borrow it, it questions it.
What happens when hope fails?
When art isn’t enough.
It begins with a father, not a soldier. Children follow, the only witnesses. Law breaks, language buckles, hope shakes. The question is simple and brutal. If the structures fail, what remains. The answer is quiet. History is told through lives, one by one. The repetition fixes it in memory, refuses to let it slip away.
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