[Music] Westlife – You Raise Me Up

Thrill your day with this amazing throwback song from Westlife titled “You Raise Me Up“.

“You Raise Me Up” is a song originally composed by the Norwegian-Irish duo Secret Garden. The music was written by Secret Garden’s Rolf Løvland, and the lyrics by Brendan Graham. After the song was performed early in 2002 by the Secret Garden and their invited lead singer, Brian Kennedy, the song only became a minor UK hit. The song has been recorded by more than a hundred other artists including American songwriter Josh Groban in 2003 and Irish boy band Westlife in 2005 whose versions were hits in their countries. Welsh singer Aled Jones recorded a successful cover in 2004, all-female Irish ensemble Celtic Woman in 2004 as well enjoying massive world-wide success with it in 2005.

Jóhann Helgason claimed the song was originally composed and released in 1977 under the title “Söknuður,” meaning Into the light. Løvland composed an instrumental piece in 2002 and titled it “Silent Story”. Løvland clams this to be an original. However, Söknuður was a moderate success, and it is claimed that Løvland had heard the song while living in Iceland. The Performing Rights Society of Iceland analyzed both songs and found a 97% similarity between them. They stated that the songs are ‘musically identical’ except for just two notes. It was disclosed at a press conference that Groban had “Söknuður” played for him in 2007, who reacted in an ‘alarmed’ fashion. He then admitted that the two songs were similar and he didn’t know where the inspiration came from. Later, singer Edgar Smári performed “Söknuður” in English to outline the similarities.  It’s been told that Løvland, who supposedly created the piece, later approached Irish novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write the lyrics to his melody, after reading Graham’s novels. In 2018 Helgason filed a lawsuit against Universal stating that the melody has been lifted from him without his permission.

Løvland stated the song was made by and for Løvland himself and performed for the very first time at the funeral of Løvland’s mother. The original designated vocalist was Johnny Logan, who recorded a demo with an orchestra. However, a desire to distance the album from the Eurovision Song Contest led to a change in vocalist.

In 2002, it was released on the 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 Curb records couldn’t come to an agreement with Universal to release Brian, and he reluctantly could not attend the tour. He was replaced by Norwegian singer Jan Werner Danielsen, who also later recorded the song together with Secret Garden. A demo version of this recording was released in 2010, on Danielsen’s posthumous compilation album One More Time – The Very Best Of, which included several previously unpublished recordings.

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), Christian group Selah (#1 on Billboard’s Christian charts), Westlife (#1 in the UK), Daniel O’Donnell (#22 in the UK) and Dutch Popstars winner Wesley Klein (#4 in the Netherlands). The song has also found success as part of a three-song EP entitled “George Best – A Tribute” by Peter Corry and the song’s original vocalist Brian Kennedy, which reached #4 in the UK.

In 2004, the song was played more than 500,000 times on American radio. In late 2005, there were over 80 versions available in US alone, and it has been nominated for Gospel Music Awards four times, including “Song of the Year.”

On 21 September 2006, “You Raise Me Up” became the first song to have sold over 76,000 copies of the score on the popular sheet music website musicnotes.com

In 2003, David Foster decided to produce the song after being introduced to it by Frank Petrone of peermusic, the song’s publisher. He chose the up-and-coming Josh Groban to record the song, which was accompanied by the tenor Craig Von Vennik of the Establishment. Groban’s version made it to #1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart in early 2004 and remained there for six weeks. This version also peaked at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100, his first single to do so, and was nominated for a 2005 Grammy award.

“You Raise Me Up” was released as the lead single from Westlife’s sixth studio album Face to Face. This version is one of the most successful covers of the song, peaking at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, the only version to do so. This was the band’s 13th number-one single as well as the first single to be released following Brian McFadden departure from the group. It debuted with 97,288 combined physical and download sales in the UK alone. The single has sold 540,000 copies in the UK so far.In South Korea, it entered the Official South Korean Year-end Downloads Singles Chart in 2010 with 130,759 sales. Later, it stayed in the top 75 of the Official International Karaoke Charts since the inception of the charts in December 2010 up to its recent chart released.

Westlife performed this song with Secret Garden at the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize concert. On December 11, 2009, they performed it again at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize concert celebrating US President Barack Obama. The backing track is re-used in the Spanish version of this song, “Por Ti Sere”, performed by Il Divo in their Siempre album. When Louis Walsh suggested the band to record it, Filan, Egan, Byrne, and Feehily were against it saying it was a church song, and would not be a success. They also said they did not want to record it. However, they have since claimed in 2011, six years after the single’s release, that the song changed their careers and were glad they recorded it. It was composed in the traditional verse–chorus form in E♭ major, with Filan and Feehily’s vocal ranging from the chords of B♭3 to B♭5.

Westlife’s official music video for “You Raise Me Up” was shot in late-2005 and is directed by Alex Hemming. It is currently the most played “You Raise Me Up” official music video version on YouTube with 73 million views as of January 2019. It is also their most-streamed single of all time with 19.7 million listens in the United Kingdom as of January 2019. It is the band’s third best selling single of all-time on both paid-for and combined sales categories. While it is their eighth most streamed song of all time from their home country, the Republic of Ireland, as of 2 April 2019. It is the second best-selling single of 2005 in Ireland.

The song was reinstated in the live bonus disc album of the band’s Greatest Hits in 2011. After the band broke up in 2012, the single was performed solo in many live instances by three of band members Shane Filan, Kian Egan and Mark Feehily. In 2018, the single was re-recorded by its member Shane Filan for his solo album Love Always – Deluxe Version. On 12 May 2018, the song was performed on South Korean music programme ‘Immortal Songs 2’ by Sohyang. Filan was the featured ‘Legend’ and judged the participants. – Wikipedia

With your headset slugged on, thrill your day with this amazing song and don’t forget to share with us here at All Naija Entertainment on what you feel about the song via the comment section below…. . . .

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Some Quotable Lyrics

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary,
When troubles come and my heart burdened be
Then I am still and wait here in the silence
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up to more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up to more than I can be.
Get Full Lyrics Here

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