Johnny Logan

Now the big question was – who is the singer to this song? Working with the arrangement of "You Raise Me Up" one particular voice constantly echoed in my head. I knew the voice so well, but for days I just couldn't put a face to it. Finally my intuition lead me to Johnny Logan – it was his great voice I could hear! We invited Johnny to the studio and he very generously agreed to record the song with us. He gave it a performance of a lifetime, and we all had tears in our eyes hearing the song materialize for the very first time. It had all come together as a natural, meant-to-be process – that eventually wasn't meant to be.

What was a unique and heartbreaking performance of a great singer now turned into politics and marketing strategy – a classical artist vs. record company-conflict. Months of heart against money finally lead to a compromise, with the release of the album at stake.

What Johnny Logan did to the song was invaluable. For many reasons it wasn't meant to be, but we still consider him the vocal architect behind the song. When Universal Music in Australia a few years later released a compilation album called Canto: The Spirit Of The Voice, we agreed to let them use the original track of "You Raise Me Up" with Johnny Logan – giving him a little, but not far enough justice of what he deserved.

Brian Kennedy

So after a long story, we were blessed to record with another great and acclaimed Irish singer - Brian Kennedy. It was important to us that the story and the performance of the song was Irish – true to the source of inspiration it came from. Brian’s recording was outstanding. He created a vocal performance that since has become the model and inspiration for so many other versions. A lot of great singers have since recorded "You Raise Me Up", but I always feel Brian represents what I want to express with this song. We’ve been asked so often which recording we like best… There are so many great singers and arrangements. With more than an estimated five-hundred different recordings to date it feels good to know that we once made our own and personal statement to the song – that we could tell our story and give the song our own signature first.

The London Community Gospel Choir

Tracey Campbell

Out of the lyric grew a new direction to the song. We decided to record a gospel choir to the final verse and chorus to add depth and weight to the meaning of "You Raise Me Up". In June we booked The London Community Gospel Choir for a session in Air Studio in London. We had also asked Bazil Meade, the choir master, to pick a female singer from the choir to do the female solo lines of the second verse. This is the story how we met the amazing singer Tracey Campbell. She added something special to the song. Unfortunately this second verse is often left out in other recordings. It feels like a great loss to us as it's essential to Brendan's beautifull and strong words. The struggle to short-format it into a radio-hit is probably the general excuse. Something gained – something lost.

However – "You Raise Me Up"– wouldn't be what it later became if it wasn't for the many incredible recordings of it. When we released it in 2001 there was no special attention to it. In spite of the record companies telling us for years if only Secret Garden could do a song we could get some exposure on radio. There was always a great response to the song on our concerts, but it took a few recordings of it before Josh Groban and David Foster turned it into an international mega-hit in 2004. The first of many million-selling cover versions. From that moment on the song lives a life of its own.

The first public performance of "You Raise Me Up" was in a live TV-programme for Norwegian TV-2 in October 2001. The programme was a fund raiser for the humanitarian organisation CARE. But prior to this a handfull of family and friends had witnessed the true first performance of "You Raise Me Up". This was at my mother's funeral in Kristiansand Chapel in September – 2001.