“You Raise Me Up” is a popular song in the inspirational mould. The music was written by Secret Garden’s Rolf Løvland and the lyrics by Brendan Graham. The song was originally written as an instrumental piece and titled “Silent Story.” Almost all of the melody is based on a traditional Irish tune (especially the opening phrase of its chorus), the Londonderry Air, which is best known as the usual tune to the 1910 song Danny Boy. Løvland approached Irish novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write the lyrics to his melody after reading Graham’s novels. It was originally released on the 2002 Secret Garden album Once in a Red Moon, with the vocals sung by Irish singer Brian Kennedy, and sold well in both Ireland and Norway. Originally, Brian Kennedy was supposed to follow Secret Garden on their Asian tour in 2002, but fell ill, and could not attend. He was replaced by Norwegian singer Jan Werner Danielsen, who also later recorded the song together with Secret Garden, but it was never released. Westlife version Although the original version did not chart internationally, the song has now been covered more than 125 times, with the most successful covers being by Josh Groban (#73 in the US and #1 on the US Adult Contemporary chart), Westlife (#1 in the UK), Daniel O’Donnell (#22 in the UK) and Dutch Popstars winner Wesley Klein (#4 in the Netherlands). Continue reading →

“Seasons in the Sun” is an English-language adaptation of the song Le Moribond by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel with lyrics by American singer-poet Rod McKuen. It became a worldwide hit in 1974 for Canadian singer Terry Jacks and became a Christmas Number 1 in 1999 for Westlife. The Jacks version is one of the fewer than thirty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) copies worldwide.
The song is a dying protagonist’s farewell to relatives and friends. Continue reading →