(6) You Raise Me Up - Structural Analysis

1. Structure in terms of Form


Here is the outline of my analysis of the structure of the song in terms of the form.

A – Introduction (Bars 1 to 12)


A’ – Verse (Bars 12 to 20)


B – 1st Chorus (Bars 20 to 28)


A’ – Violin solo (Bars 28 to 36)


B’ – 2nd Chorus (Bars 36 to 44)


B’ – 3rd Chorus (Bars 45 to 53)


B’ – 4th Chorus (Bars 53 to 62)

C – Outro in the form of a Cadential Extension (Bars 62 to 66)




As shown above, the song mainly consists of 2 distinct sections of musical material, A and B. Both sections A and B take turns to be repeated, with some modifications in some instances, but still maintaining the similar musical material overall.


The song only has one verse, but the chorus is repeated four times, possibly because Brendan Graham felt it was important to send this hopeful message through the song;


You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains


I am strong, when I am on your shoulders


You raise me up, to more than I can be.



The chorus talks about what people can do with God’s strength. In this verse, one can interpret how hard the lives are for those who are waiting for God. Ultimately, God comes and raises them up to high positions.




The last section, section C, is the Outro in the form of a cadential extension. I decided to label it as “C” because I feel that the musical material is actually a hybrid of the material from sections A and B. The lyrics in section C is derived from the chorus in section B, while I feel that harmonic aspect of the music in section C is actually more similar to that of section A. Hence my conclusion that section C is a hybrid of the musical material from both sections A and B.




2. Structure in terms of Phrasing


Here is my analysis of the structure of the song in terms of the phrasing. The essential phrase structure of the song is seen to be maintained for most of the song. Let us take a look at the phrase structure of the Introduction (bars 1 to 12) as an example.




There appears to be what seems like a 2-2-4 type of sentence structure in the Introduction section. The first “2-bar” sentence occurs from bar 1 to the second half of bar 3. The next “2-bar” sentence occurs from the second half of bar 3 to the end of bar 5. The final “4-bar” sentence occurs from the second half of bar 6 and leads to a perfect cadence at the start of bar 11. These would leave about 2 bars before we reach the end of the Introduction; these remaining music would then constitute as a single unit on its own, and can be considered as a short transition linking the beginning of the piece to the Verse section when the vocalist starts to sing.



This basic 2-2-4 sentence structure is seen to be maintained for the rest of the song, except for the music towards the end of the song, from the 4th Chorus onwards, where there are a few remaining bars towards the end of the song that does not fit into the 2-2-4 sentence structure as before. These remaining bars would then constitute as a single unit on their own, as the song's Outro in the form of a cadential extension.