Music
10 May 16

Brendan Graham Writes Song For Queen Elizabeth

Recorded by Katherine Jenkins, ‘This Mother’s Heart’ will be performed at the official birthday celebrations for the Queen, in June...

Brendan Graham, the Irish songwriter behind the huge success of ‘You Raise Me Up’, has written a song to mark the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth. The queen’s actual birthday was on April 21st, but the official celebrations will take place in the UK in May and June of this year.

Graham was invited to write the lyrics for the tribute song by the hugely successful classical crossover artist Katherine Jenkins and her producer Jon Cohen, who together, wrote the music. The resulting song, ‘This Mother’s Heart’, is the single and opening track – and the only new song – on Jenkins’ latest album Celebration, which entered the UK album charts at No.7.
Brendan Graham’s 'You Raise Me Up' had previously been performed by Westlife for the special concert in the Convention Centre during the Queen's historic State Visit to Ireland.

"For me the Queen's State visit to Ireland, the obvious rapport between herself and our then President, Mary McAleese, and her sensitivity and warmth, were a measure of the woman, inspiring a hopefulness for the future."

“So, in this new era of rapprochement between our two countries,” Graham told Hot Press, "it was an honour for me as an Irish songwriter to be approached to write this song to celebrate her Queen Elizabeth's 90th Birthday - all the more so in this centenary commemorative year of 1916. I was at the recording in Air Studios in February.”

The lyrics had special resonance too for the Welsh mezzo-soprano, whose first child Aaliyah was born in New York, in September 2015.
"I was aware of Katherine's newly being a mother,” Brendan reflects, "so, in another sense the song is quite an intimate expression of that unquenchable love that is in every mother's heart.”

Brendan Graham has, in the past dealt with issues surrounding the impact of Britain on the experience of being Irish.

"My The Whitest Flower trilogy, did deal with – as Hot Press once noted – 'one of the grossest stains on the British Empire’,” Brendan reflects - ''that 'stain' being the An Gorta Mor - the Great Famine. While not forgetting the dark history between our two islands, as a nation we are no longer in a post-colonial mindset – and so, I saw my being invited to write this song this as an kind of further expression of that unshackling. I hope that thissong might reach back across the Irish Sea – and perhaps, in a very small way furthering the links between our two countries."

The song drew on the Queen of England’s own words.

"The lyrics,” Brendan elaborates, "were partly inspired by the Queen's 'I give you my heart' speech of some years ago and by her recent Christmas speech, where she quotes St John’s lines – ‘It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness’.

Katherine Jenkins' album also includes versions of ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ (the most popular song in the year of the Queen’s birth), David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ and ‘God Save The Queen’ (not the Sex Pistols’ song!) – plus songs from her catalogue, including ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’, ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. The full track listing is:

1. This Mother’s Heart

2. Land Of My Fathers

3. Someone To Watch Over Me

4. Heroes

5. Jerusalem

6. Amazing Grace

7. I Vow To Thee My Country

8. Abide With Me

9. I Could Have Danced All Night

10. Cwm Rhondda

11. All Things Bright And Beautiful

12. God Save The Queen (Three Verses)