Put your personal feelings about Josh Groban aside for a moment.  That song about someone raising someone else up is great.

It’s a love song, actually.  A love song to you.  Every one of your friends is more because of you.  Their life is more worth living because of you.  They love their life more because of you.  You see, Josh is singing to you.  It’s not a song about what others do for you.  It’s a song about what you do for others.  It is not about you.  It is not about me.  It is about others.

Of course there is no way I can know what Josh is thinking when he sings it.  I can’t tell you what Brendan Graham meant when he wrote those lyrics.  I can tell you only what the song evokes in me when I listen.

First, I think of the Irish ballad  Danny Boy.

Because the song borrowed it’s melody in part from that song. And it’s beautiful to imagine how sorrowful and wonderful the singer of Danny Boy was.

Then I think about all the people in my life who have moved a little farther along their path because I was there to support them.  And I think about the lives they have improved because I was able to help.  And I think of those who have been there for me.

Besides, most days I feel that I am standing on the shoulders of others anyway.  So why not own that others are standing on my shoulders?