Candle on the Water – Pete's Dragon

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Candle on the Water – Pete's Dragon


I'm a huge Disney fan, love their films, love their theme parks. I think they create magic.

Big part of my love for all things Disney is the music they use and created for their films. There's a great movie called 'Saving Mr. Banks' all about how they made 'Mary Poppins'. What I really love about that film is they take you behind the scenes of how their in house songwriters crafted the songs, pure imagination. That would probably be my dream job.

There are so many iconic songs from all their huge movies, 'When You Wish Upon A Star' brings a tear to my eye whenever I hear it, for a number of reasons now including great memories of watching the fireworks bursting over Cinderella's castle at The Magic Kingdom. But wind back 40 years and then there's this song.

I'm at infant school, it's the end of term, we are all ushered into the assembly hall for a special treat. They wheel in one of those big old wooden TV's on a stand, a huge VHS player in a box underneath. They put on 'Pete's Dragon', a lesser known Disney film which blew my mind. The big difference with this one was that the animated dragon was overlaid over live action with real actors, how they did that back then was amazing, they must have painted over every single cell. The results were fantastic and also very entertaining.

Then in the middle of the movie they play out this song, the lady lighthouse keeper is singing to her love who is out in the ocean and they don't know where he is and if he's safe. The lyrics tell us how she's there to guide him safely home, it's such a wonderful metaphor to explain her love for him. As a kid I didn't understand the real meaning in it, I just loved the relaxed soothing melody. It's stuck with me all through these years, Elliot the dragon was my favourite float used for the Electric Light Parade at Disneyland when we visited years later.

Favourite lyric : I'll be your candle on the water / This flame inside of me will grow
Location: Rayleigh, UK

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