Icelandic music stolen /
Concerning proper respect

Earlier this evening I was reading up on the fourth edition of Shadowrun rules with the television news as a background noise when I heard a familiar tune that kind of got me intrinsically, but unbeknownst, humming to it’s melody. Still I kept my nose firmly down in my rulebook for the news seemingly did not raise enough interest for me to take notice of general things worthy of attention, ... or so I thought. Few moments later though the anchoring reporter mentioned a name of a late relation of mine and in an instant I automatically switched back to reality. The tune I had found myself humming to turned out to be “You raise me up” performed by Josh Groban, but with the mentioning of the name Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson (Willhelm Willhelms’son) everything had automatically clicked into place and I knew beforehand how the rest of the news report was going to unfold. In essence, the song “You raise me up” popularized by Josh Groban had all the signatures of being nothing more than a strong candidate of becoming a premium textbook example of a plagiaristic work of art!

The reporter stated that Jóhann Helgason who composed the music to Vilhjalmur’s song „Söknuður“, (meaning Regret or Missed dearly), had filed a lawsuit in Britain on those taking credit and holding the rights to the music to the song “You raise me up”. Interestingly enough it was stated in the report that 97% of the whole music is exactly like it’s original Söknuður*. I went online and listened to the English version. When hearing it, it became clear to me that the news report had some extensive ring of truth to it. In fact the music was almost exactly like the music to Söknuður. Furthermore I compared the text with the original and I found out that though the text itself is not a direct translation, the spirit of the original text, the intake itself is an obvious copy/paste, ... and a sloppy copy/paste at that! For instance the most emphasized part is “you raise me up to more then I can be” ... is a circumscribed wording of the last part of the first verse in Icelandic mish-mashidly translated by Your’s Truly as “if you were beside me, I would (gladly) become a better man.”

All in all, Josh Groban’s music performance was as stolen as a song can get. The most striking realization of that hit me when I heard a symphonic version for the prelude with the violins and the vocal emphasis that were almost exactly down to the minute detail of it with the exception of slight skipping of a couple of notes.

You can listen here to the song Söknuður performed by Vilhjalmur.

Concerning the song Söknuður, it is relevant to know that Vilhjalmur wrote the song in memory of a very dear friend of his. He needed a music for his lyric and asked Jóhann Helgason to compose it. With a very short notice Johann did a splendid composition and shortly thereafter Vilhjalmur sang his song during the private interment of his dear late friend. Söknuður was later pressed on his second solo album „Hana nú“ in the year 1977, see photo above (a CD release in 2001). Up until that time Vilhjalmur was not known for singing his own works, though it became quite clear with Söknuður that he did not only have a beautiful voice with a greater potential still, but he also was in fact a truly fantastic text writer. One year later another record was published, this time with his own texts to music composed by various other artists. Few days after that record was released the greatest bloodtake in the Icelandic music scene came to the fore when Vilhjalmur died in a horrible automobile accident in Luxembourg on the 28th of March 1978 at the young age of only 33 while being shuttled to a commercial airplane for Loftleidir, but he was a commercial pilot for the company. He often sang with his renowned sister Elly Vilhjalmsdottir, who also was a musical performer and had been singing professionally for years before her little brother Vilhjalmur was ushered up onto the stage with a microphone in hand. His seasoned sister withdrew herself little by little from the spotlight and focused instead on her family.

So back on track to the issue at hand:
Though the song “You raise me up” is performed by Josh Groban, those taking credit for ‘composing’ both the text and the music to the song are two, namely; the reputable Brendan Graham, and one Norwegian by the name of Rolf Løvland who incidentally is reputed to be very familiar with Icelandic music. In the following link you can see and hear Rolf Løvland with a stiff upper lip grin taking the credit before playing ‘his’ piece on the piano on stage during a Westlife performance of the aforementioned song. As for them taking credit in writing, a proof of that can be found right here!

As a trivia of information for those who are not versed in the Icelandic music scene of the pre-punk era, I should mention that Vilhjalmur Vilhjalmsson, and his sister Eldey Elly Vilhjalmsdottir, were one of Iceland’s most beloved musical performers in the late 60’s and 70’s.

Drawing to a close
Please do excuse my language but I firmly hope that Jóhann Helgason, the real author of the music to You raise me up, will successfully litigate this publicly, furthest up the arses of Brendan Graham and Rolf Løvland and the publishers of Josh Groban who have been abit too much ‘inspired’ for their own good by signing themselves as authors and owners of the rights to the above mentioned music piece. This I have to watch closely how this whole affair pans out.
The Evil baron has steamed off!

*Icelandic Musician Sues Josh Groban a news report on Icelandic-Review-Online; 07/02/2007 | 11:58 GMT

P.s. Brynjar, ... ’appy birthday you dormant rascal!