Walking in the Air

This article is about the Howard Blake song. For other uses, see Walking in the Air (disambiguation).
"Walking in the Air"
Single by Howard Blake & Peter Auty
B-side"Dance of the Snowmen"
Released1982 (1982)
Genre
Length3:30
LabelCBS
Songwriter(s)Howard Blake
Producer(s)Howard Blake

"Walking in the Air" is a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film The Snowman based on Raymond Briggs's 1978 children's book of the same name. The song forms the centrepiece of The Snowman, which has become a seasonal favourite on British and Finnish television.[1] The story relates the fleeting adventures of a young boy and a snowman who has come to life. In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole. "Walking in the Air" is the theme for the journey. They attend a party of snowmen, at which the boy seems to be the only human until they meet Santa Claus with his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern. In the film, the song was performed by St Paul's Cathedral choirboy Peter Auty;[2] this performance was reissued in 1985 (on Stiff Records) and 1987.[3]

In 1985, an altered version was recorded for use in a TV advertising campaign for Toys "R" Us.[4] While it was believed[by whom?] that Auty's voice had then broken, Auty claimed in an interview with BBC Breakfast News on 2 December 2022 that his voice had not broken and he was never contacted for the recording.[citation needed] Blake recommended the then-14-year-old Welsh chorister Aled Jones, whose recording reached number five in the UK Singles Chart on 28 December 1985, and who became a popular celebrity on the strength of his performance.[4][5] The association of the song with Jones, combined with Auty not being credited on The Snowman, led to a common misbelief that Jones performed the song in the film. "Walking in the Air" has subsequently been performed by over forty artists, in a variety of styles. In a UK poll in 2012, the Aled Jones version was voted 13th on the ITV television special The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.[6]

  1. ^ "Tämä ohjelma on katsojien joulusuosikki" (in Finnish). Retrieved 2018-02-25.
  2. ^ "Snowman singer finds voice at last". BBC News. 2002-12-09. Retrieved 2016-12-21.
  3. ^ "Singles", Sounds, 14 December 1985, p. 22
  4. ^ a b Brown, Helen (21 September 2023). "How Walking in the Air took The Snowman to great heights". Financial TImes. Archived from the original on 1 October 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  5. ^ "Walking in the Air". Official Charts. 28 December 1985. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  6. ^ "The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song (shown on ITV on 22 December 2012)". Radio Times. n.d. Retrieved 16 December 2021.