"Candle on the Water" is a song written by Al Kasha

Al Kasha

Al Kasha is a Brooklyn–born composer, songwriter and arranger, as well as businessman. He is most noted for his years of collaboration with songwriter Joel Hirschhorn...

 and Joel Hirschhorn

Joel Hirschhorn

Joel Hirschhorn, , was an American songwriter. During a successful career, he won the Academy Award for Best Song on two occasions...

 from Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 Picture's live action/animation film Pete's Dragon

Pete's Dragon

Pete's Dragon is a 1977 live-action/animated musical film from Walt Disney Productions and the first Disney film to be recorded in the Dolby Stereo sound system...

. It is sung by Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy , often referred to as "The Queen of 70s Pop", is an Australian-American singer and actress. In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed fifteen singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six of those 15 songs made the Top 10...

, who plays Nora in the film, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song in 1977, though it lost to You Light Up My Life

You Light Up My Life (song)

Many artists have covered "You Light Up My Life" since 1977. The following year, Johnny Mathis recorded and named his album after the song. LeAnn Rimes released her version as a single in 1997, 20 years after Boone's version was released and on the same record label . Her version fared modestly...

.

The setting for the song is entirely on the lantern room balcony of the lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

 in which Nora and her father Lampey live.
Nora sings the song to her lover Paul, who has been lost at sea for over a year but Nora believes will one day return. Her father one evening mocks her about this, and she retires to the lighthouse balcony to sing toward the ocean

Ocean

An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...

, assuring Paul that she is still waiting for him.

"Candle on the Water" has been sung on the DisneyMania 4

DisneyMania 4

Disneymania 4 is the fourth in the Disneymania series. This is the album debut of many current stars on Disney Channel, like Miley Cyrus from Hannah Montana...

 album by Anneliese van der Pol

Anneliese van der Pol

Anneliese Louise van der Pol is a Dutch-American actress and singer. After an early career in musical theatre, she was cast as Chelsea Daniels in the Disney Channel Original Series That's So Raven, a role that gained her renown among young audiences. Van der Pol also has a career as a singer and...

. It was also sung briefly by Kristin Chenoweth

Kristin Chenoweth

Kristin Chenoweth is an American singer and actress, with credits in musical theatre, film and television. She is best known on Broadway for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown , for which she won a Tony Award, and for originating the role of Glinda in the musical...

 and an unidentified a capella group in the dramedy Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies is an American comedy-drama television series created by Bryan Fuller that aired on ABC from October 3, 2007 to June 13, 2009. The series stars Lee Pace as Ned, a pie-maker with the ability to bring dead things back to life with his touch, an ability that comes with stipulations...

in the episode "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy".