Mayo-based songwriter pens lyrics for Gipsy Kings' new single

THE legendary Gipsy Kings have turned to Brendan Graham for lyrics to their new single, 'Abandonado', released this Friday to promote the band’s 2023/24 world tour.

'Abandonado' is taken from the band’s Renaissance album.

The Mayo-based songwriter is best known as the lyricist of 'You Raise Me Up', and for writing/composing Ireland’s last two winning Eurovision songs, 'Rock ’n’ Roll Kids' (1994) and 'The Voice' (1996).

Gipsy Kings founder Tonino Baliardo, announcing the news, said: “Our new single 'Abandonado' will be out on September 8. The lyrics will be in English and have been written by Brendan Graham, who wrote the worldwide hit 'You Raise Me Up' by Josh Groban. We are very excited about this release.”

'Abandonado' (Abandoned) is a typical Gipsy Kings, guitar driven melody, with the passionate emotion of loss and abandonment captured by Baliardo’s extraordinary vocal expression of Graham’s lyric.

“It was an honour to be asked,” Graham said, “as well as a challenge, to write an English lyric for this legendary band and the unique voice of Tonino Baliardo. It’s one of the joys of being a songwriter when the song works, and it gets embraced by artistes of such stature as the Gipsy Kings.”

Brendan spoke to Geoff about this song and his amazing career as a songwriter penning 4 Eurovision entries (2 winners) and the classic "You Raise Me Up" and many more songs.