‘You Raise Me Up’, the global hit song co-written by Irishman Brendan Graham and Norwegian Ralf Løvland, has been named as one of the songs that “defined America.” The distinction is bestowed in a new book by James Perone, the professor of music at the University of Mount Union. Among his previous works is Music of the Counterculture Era.

In the book, Perone examines 100 songs that he believes helped tell America's story. He explains why each song became a hit, what cultural and social values it embodies, the issues it touches on, what audiences it attracted, and what made it a definitive part of American history and popular culture.

The chart-topping songs included in the selection crossed gender, age, race, and class lines to appeal to the mass American audience. The book discusses patriotic songs, minstrel music, and sacred songs and hymns, as well as music in the broad categories of pop, rock, hip hop, jazz, country, and folk.

Individual songs are presented chronologically in the book, based on when they were written – rather than necessarily when the hit versions were released.

Among the other sings discussed are standards like ‘Yankee Doodle’, ‘Oh, Susannah’, ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘This Land Is Your Land’ and 'As Time Goes By’, as well as songs by Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan (who has more than one entry), the late Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Taylor Swift – whose ‘Mean’ also makes the cut. ‘You Raise Me Up’ is described as a worldwide phenomenon, and a song that has become one of the most successful and frequently sung inspirational songs of the 20th Century.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is no U2 in the list – though contemporaries Talking Heads’ (with ‘In A Lifetime’) and Blondie (with ‘Heart of Glass’) do make the cut. However, it might be argued that ‘You Raise Me Up’ is in fact not the only Irish song in the list.

‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’, which is also included, was written by Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, a Galway-born band-leader and composer, who had settled in Boston and wrote the song during the American civil war. It was first published in 1863.

George M. Cohan’s ‘Give My Regards to Broadway’, originally written for the musical Little Johnny James is also included. Cohan, characterised as “the man who owned Broadway" was born in Rhode Island to two Irish parents, who had travelled to the US and worked as vaudeville performers.

This latest recognition of ‘You Raise Me Up' follows close on the heels of its inclusion in Gerry Hanberry’s book, On Raglan Road – Great Irish Love Songs. Previously, global sheet music publisher Hal Leonard included ‘You Raise Me Up' in the song folio The World’s Greatest Standards - 51 of the Most Popular Standards Ever Written.