You Raise Me Up

You raise me up with Secret Garden

"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 and all-female Irish ensemble Celtic Woman have also recorded successful covers.

Løvland composed an instrumental piece in 2002 and titled it "Silent Story". He later approached Irish novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write the lyrics to his melody, after reading Graham's novels. The song was performed for the very first time at the funeral of Løvland's mother.[1][2] 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2010, on Danielsen's posthumous compilation album One More Time - The Very Best Of, which included several previously unpublished recordings.