A song · a film · a question we ask strangers
What is Love?
Что такое любовь?
A song we are still writing — on the streets of Ireland, from what strangers tell us about love.
Listen first
Nick wrote “What is Love?” (Что такое любовь?) and it is still unreleased — because he could not finish it alone. The song needed real answers, from real people. So we went looking for them.
The words Show lyrics Hide lyrics
Что такое любовь? What is love?
Затертые буквы Letters worn faded
Разбитое сердце A heart split in pieces
Смятый билет A ticket, all creased
Что такое любовь? What is love?
Пустые надежды Hopes that come to nothing
Внезапная встреча A sudden meeting
Открытый секрет A secret set free
Оооо Oooh
Любовь Love
Это так много всего It's so many things at once
Но как найти её? But how do you find it?
Любовь так много всего Love is so many things
Что такое любовь What is love
Придерживать двери To hold the door open
для тех, кто хочет For those who just want
быть наравне To stand on the same ground
Что такое любовь What is love
Почувствовать сердцем, To feel with your heart
что тебе делать, Which way you should turn
когда в тупике When you're backed in a corner
Любовь Love
Она с тобою везде It's with you everywhere
Ооо, любовь Ooh, love
она с тобой It's with you
Что такое любовь? What is love?
Звонки без ответа Calls left unanswered
Бессонные ночи The nights without sleeping
Дурацкие дни The days that feel dumb
Что такое любовь? What is love?
Когда тебе плохо When you're at your lowest
Но вечером кухня But come night, the kitchen's
Забита людьми Crowded with your people
Ооо, любовь Ooh, love
Когда мы не одни When we're not alone
Ооо, любовь Ooh, love
Мы не будем одни We won't be alone
Забытый цветок между страниц A flower forgotten between the pages
Два обручальных кольца, но только одно подходит Two wedding rings, but only one still fits
Бывает любовь не всегда навсегда Sometimes love isn't always forever
Любовь это точно, а иногда вроде Love is a sure thing — and sometimes it just seems that way
The last verse of the song is left blank on purpose. Nick hasn’t written it yet, because the right words are still out there — in the answers people give us on the street. We are not done listening.
Who we are, and what we’re doing here
We are Nick and Vitaly. Nick is a musician from Belarus. Vitaly is a designer, painter, and author from Ukraine. We’re traveling through Ireland with a camera and a few plain questions — stopping people on the street and asking them about love. We started in Dublin. Today we’ve just arrived in Galway to keep going.
When the war began between our two countries, both of us left home — and neither of us can go back. Nick lives in Poland now; Vitaly in Turkey. A Belarusian and a Ukrainian, still friends, still making things side by side. Maybe that’s part of why we ask about love the way we do: when so much around you is about who stands against whom, the questions that actually hold people together start to feel like the only ones worth asking.
The answers surprise us every day. Some people light up. Some go quiet. A few have been hurt badly, and say so. Others admit, gently, that they’re not sure they have ever felt it. What we keep noticing is that no one is really alone in this — and that these simple, important things are the ones we almost never stop to talk about.
That’s the whole heart of it: to ask, to listen, and to remind each other that we’re more connected than we think. We know the questions aren’t perfect. But trying to answer them seems to spark something in people — and we get to watch it happen.
We’ll keep traveling through the end of summer, collecting answers from all kinds of people along the way. After that, everything we’ve gathered becomes a film — edited together as part of the release of the song. The song gave us the question; the people we meet are helping us finish it.
The questions
- What is love?
- When was the last time you said “I love you” to someone?
- If love was a food, what would it be?
- What was the dumbest thing you’ve done for love?
Some of the people we met in Dublin
These are from Dublin, where we started. It’s only a small part of what we’re working on — not all of it, and not the best replies. Just a glimpse of the honesty we keep running into. Galway is next.
For Mayor Helen Ogbu
Mayor Ogbu — we’ve just arrived in Galway, and one of the first people we hoped to meet is you. We’d be honoured if you’d sit with us for a few minutes and answer the same four questions we ask a stranger on Shop Street: what love is, the last time you said it, what it would taste like, the dumbest thing you’ve done for it.
We’re asking you, and not only as the Mayor. You know what it is to arrive from somewhere else and make a home — to become part of a city that wasn’t where you started. So do we. That’s the whole reason this film exists: two of us who can’t go home, learning that love is the thing that lets people belong to a place, and to each other, anyway.
Your voice would belong in this the same way everyone else’s does — no headline, no agenda. Just an honest answer, from someone who leads a city built, like all the best ones, by people who came to it and stayed. We’d be grateful for the time.
Music Nick has made
“What is Love?” is unreleased — but plenty of Nick’s other projects are out on streaming. A few of them: