how do you tell if a song is a "christian" song anyway?
Ignore the title for this entry for now... it's more of an offhand side-comment. ;) This entry is a sort of mystery story. I'm curious if anybody else had the same experience.
I was reading a friend's profile and came across the lyrics to Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" (which is a song which I had never actually heard, although I was aware it was popular) and I started reading them. And all of a sudden, a tune popped into my head. The cadence of the words matched perfectly with that most famous of tunes, Irish Tune from Country Derry a.k.a. Londonderry Air a.k.a. the tune for Danny Boy. In fact, the rhythmic similarity was so striking, that I had to find out if Josh Groban had stolen the tune and just sung new words to it! So I took a listen, and wow, I was right! It's note-for-note identical to that Irish tune in many places. The rhythm is a bit more stylized, and the melody is changed in spots, and I think in the entire song only one chord is changed. So, in summary, it is very, very similar.
I took a brief detour when I discovered fairly quickly (top of the Google search results) that there's a "christian" group, Selah, that also sings the song (decently, I might add); and their version has one more verse. So, not having a whole lot of respect for Josh Groban (ok so I admit, he can certainly sing amazingly well, and I like his version of The Prayer, with Charlotte Church, better than any other artist's version that I've heard so far, but other than that, he seems like a pansy), or for "christian" artists (my primary feeling about the "christian"-pop music world is that most of those artists get by with less talent than secular ones, because people will buy their recordings out of some sort of religious guilt or being religiously inspired by the words, rather than being deeply moved by the musical expression involved which is usually mediocre), I immediately assumed that Selah must have ripped off the Irish tune, probably without caring or even noticing, and that Josh Groban must have borrowed the song from them and dropped the verse. But, it turns out I was wrong...
...Because then I did some actual research, and was able to dig up who really wrote it (Josh Groban doesn't write his own songs, in case anybody assumed he did... I don't know why I have such a dislike for people who are really famous musicians but all they do is sing, and don't play a musical instrument or write their songs or anything. Maybe I just think they get their fame and fortune far too easily without really deserving it). The composers are Rolf Lovland (music) and Brendan Graham (lyrics). Rolf Lovland is part of a duo called Secret Garden, from Norway, and it is this group that released the real, original version of this song. Here's an excerpt of the liner notes from Secret Garden's website:Started it's life as a slow air with fragments of a familiar Irish tune weaving its way into the melody. We tried to banish the piece but it would not go away. Maybe it wanted a different life-form…and so, we decided to pursue the idea of adding lyrics and asked Irish writer Brendan Graham to listen to it. His books "The Whitest Flower" and "The Element of Fire" - two best-selling novels about the life of Ellen Rua O' Malley during the Irish famine, had inspired us strongly. He immediately began to "hear a story" in the melody and by that same evening had shaped the first draft of You raise me up.
So "You Raise Me Up" really is somewhat based on that famous Irish tune after all--and the composer knew it, and admits it. I feel a lot better now. :) Of course, it's still true that Josh Groban dropped a verse. I mean, what respectable songwriter would start out with a verse, and then sing the chorus 3 times in a row and then finish the song, without having a second verse mixed in there somewhere in the middle? And if you look at the words on Secret Garden's website, they do indeed have that second verse (and incidentally that means Selah used the original words unedited rather than being influenced too much by Josh Groban).
Now what we really need to do is get pieces of each musical group together (Josh Groban for a guest appearance, maybe duetting or trading off with the male singer that sang it with Secret Garden, who himself was really good, the instrumentalists and backup choir Rolf Lovland used for the Secret Garden recording, and maybe the female singer for the second verse from Selah, who while not spectacular certainly did a much better job than the one Secret Garden used) and put them together and re-record, because, each version of the song is missing something! ;)
I was reading a friend's profile and came across the lyrics to Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" (which is a song which I had never actually heard, although I was aware it was popular) and I started reading them. And all of a sudden, a tune popped into my head. The cadence of the words matched perfectly with that most famous of tunes, Irish Tune from Country Derry a.k.a. Londonderry Air a.k.a. the tune for Danny Boy. In fact, the rhythmic similarity was so striking, that I had to find out if Josh Groban had stolen the tune and just sung new words to it! So I took a listen, and wow, I was right! It's note-for-note identical to that Irish tune in many places. The rhythm is a bit more stylized, and the melody is changed in spots, and I think in the entire song only one chord is changed. So, in summary, it is very, very similar.
I took a brief detour when I discovered fairly quickly (top of the Google search results) that there's a "christian" group, Selah, that also sings the song (decently, I might add); and their version has one more verse. So, not having a whole lot of respect for Josh Groban (ok so I admit, he can certainly sing amazingly well, and I like his version of The Prayer, with Charlotte Church, better than any other artist's version that I've heard so far, but other than that, he seems like a pansy), or for "christian" artists (my primary feeling about the "christian"-pop music world is that most of those artists get by with less talent than secular ones, because people will buy their recordings out of some sort of religious guilt or being religiously inspired by the words, rather than being deeply moved by the musical expression involved which is usually mediocre), I immediately assumed that Selah must have ripped off the Irish tune, probably without caring or even noticing, and that Josh Groban must have borrowed the song from them and dropped the verse. But, it turns out I was wrong...
...Because then I did some actual research, and was able to dig up who really wrote it (Josh Groban doesn't write his own songs, in case anybody assumed he did... I don't know why I have such a dislike for people who are really famous musicians but all they do is sing, and don't play a musical instrument or write their songs or anything. Maybe I just think they get their fame and fortune far too easily without really deserving it). The composers are Rolf Lovland (music) and Brendan Graham (lyrics). Rolf Lovland is part of a duo called Secret Garden, from Norway, and it is this group that released the real, original version of this song. Here's an excerpt of the liner notes from Secret Garden's website:Started it's life as a slow air with fragments of a familiar Irish tune weaving its way into the melody. We tried to banish the piece but it would not go away. Maybe it wanted a different life-form…and so, we decided to pursue the idea of adding lyrics and asked Irish writer Brendan Graham to listen to it. His books "The Whitest Flower" and "The Element of Fire" - two best-selling novels about the life of Ellen Rua O' Malley during the Irish famine, had inspired us strongly. He immediately began to "hear a story" in the melody and by that same evening had shaped the first draft of You raise me up.
So "You Raise Me Up" really is somewhat based on that famous Irish tune after all--and the composer knew it, and admits it. I feel a lot better now. :) Of course, it's still true that Josh Groban dropped a verse. I mean, what respectable songwriter would start out with a verse, and then sing the chorus 3 times in a row and then finish the song, without having a second verse mixed in there somewhere in the middle? And if you look at the words on Secret Garden's website, they do indeed have that second verse (and incidentally that means Selah used the original words unedited rather than being influenced too much by Josh Groban).
Now what we really need to do is get pieces of each musical group together (Josh Groban for a guest appearance, maybe duetting or trading off with the male singer that sang it with Secret Garden, who himself was really good, the instrumentalists and backup choir Rolf Lovland used for the Secret Garden recording, and maybe the female singer for the second verse from Selah, who while not spectacular certainly did a much better job than the one Secret Garden used) and put them together and re-record, because, each version of the song is missing something! ;)