Who Composed You Raise Me Up - T-Tees - Your Answers Await, Life's Questions Unraveled

The Story Behind The Song

Tipperary-born songwriter, Brendan Graham, has an enviable track record. He has won the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest not once, but twice for Ireland, with ‘Rock’n’Roll Kids’ sung by Charlie McGettigan & Paul Harrington in 1994, and again with ‘The Voice’ sung by Eimear Quinn in 1996. ‘The Voice’ was subsequently added to the GCSE music syllabus throughout Britain, confirming its status as a song to learn – and a song to learn from. But Graham’s extraordinary talent has shone on a wider stage, with his songs featuring on albums recorded right across the globe, by Irish and international artists alike, from Canada to China and New Zealand to Japan, selling in tens of millions – and counting. He is also a successful novelist, publishing a series of three novels The Whitest Flower (1998), The Element of Fire (2001) and The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night (2004), which tell the story of an Irish family driven to America during the Great Famine and the subsequent life led by the trilogy’s ultimate heroine, Ellen Rua O’Malley, in the US.

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Brendan’s biggest and best-known song is ‘You Raise Me Up’, co-written with the Norwegian musician and composer Rolf Løvland, which has become a vast global industry all on its own, being recorded by over 1,400 artists in fifty different languages and inspiring over 2 billion internet views.

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The origins of the song can be traced to the Norwegian-based Secret Garden, a duo comprising Irish violinist and singer Fionnuala Sherry from Co. Kildare, and the aforementioned Rolf Løvland. Løvland composed a melody which he titled ‘Silent Story’, which was based on the Irish traditional tune, ‘The Derry Air’ – which also provided the melodic basis for the celebrated, world famous American-Irish song, ‘Danny Boy’.

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Having read The Whitest Flower, the Norwegian musician asked Brendan Graham to compose lyrics to the sound-bed and melody he had crafted. The song was completed by Brendan, at his rural retreat outside Cong in Co. Mayo, on the West coast of Ireland. Vocal duties for the first version, released in 2002, were given to virtuoso guest singer Brian Kennedy, from Belfast. People who heard that version – a No.1 hit in Norway – were mightily impressed with what was an emotion-packed, anthemic performance – but no one could have foretold just how exceptional its transformation would be, as the song became a completely unique, worldwide, musical phenomenon.

The mercurial journey of a song that truly hits the sweet spot started to properly take shape in 2003, when the American singer Josh Groban recorded ‘You Raise Me Up’, taking it to No.1 in the US Adult-Contemporary Charts, and chalking-up over one million sales in the process. The magic carpet ride that would sprinkle the song into the global collective consciousness had taken off in earnest. Two years later, it was recorded by Irish boyband Westlife, whose manager Louis Walsh is renowned for having a keen eye for a potential hit. That record became the group’s thirteenth No.1, including one week during which the single and the album from which it was taken both held down the top spot in the respective UK singles and album charts. Westlife’s version of ‘You Raise Me Up’ was also voted Record of the Year in Britain and was a big chart hit in numerous other countries.

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A parade of additional recordings of the song began to proliferate, including versions by the Irish female troupe Celtic Woman, Welsh singer Aled Jones, Selah, a vocal trio based in Nashville, Tennessee, the famed Il Divo and BYU Vocal Point from Utah, USA. American singing legend Johnny Mathis sang it on his album The Great New American Songbook, a curious but nonetheless significant accolade for a song with no American creative involvement whatsoever. But that short list is truly merely the tip of the tip of the iceberg. In all, ‘You Raise Me Up’ has been recorded over 1,400 times, in fifty different languages.

It has also been performed at hundreds of major ceremonial and celebratory occasions, whether humanitarian, political, religious, cultural or sporting. It has featured almost endlessly on major television shows, including in places like China and North Korea. And so on, and on…

Asked by Hot Press magazine to name a particular highlight in his career to date, Graham said, “One that jumps out was when Josh Groban sang ‘You Raise Me Up’ at half-time during the Super Bowl. I recall watching it on television and seeing the tears streaming down the faces of those mighty, fine athletes. I also fondly remember when it was sung as part of the commemoration for the Columbia space shuttle tragedy. It was very moving.”

But, of course, he might have named any of a hundred other special performances of a song that also works as a kid of aural ambassador for what Irish music means to the world.

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Brendan Graham’s other songs, meanwhile, have also inspired a remarkable number of recordings and performances in many languages, including a roll-call of international acts of the calibre of Irish traditional band Dervish, Scottish singer Karen Matheson, The Chieftains with movie star Liam Neeson, Moya Brennan of Clannad, Seán Keane, Aretha Franklin, the Riverdance choral group ANÚNA, Irish country legends Sandy Kelly and Daniel O’Donnell, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Elaine Paige, Katherine Jenkins, Helena Westenra, and many more, to add to his army of distinguished fans.

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