"Walking on a Dream" is a song by Australian

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

duo Empire of the Sun, released on 30 August 2008 as the lead single from their debut studio album of the

same name ''Same Name'' is an American reality television series in which an average person swaps lives with a celebrity of the same first and last name. It premiered on July 24, 2011 on CBS. The series received low ratings, and CBS pulled it after four-ep ...

(2008). The track was co-written by band members, Luke Steele and

Nick Littlemore Nicholas George Littlemore (born 6 May 1978) is an Australian musician, record producer, singer, songwriter and tour manager. As a musician, he is the frontman of the electronic project Pnau, an ex-member of the art-rock band Teenager and one p ...

with Jonathan "Donnie" Sloan. The full Sam La More

remix A remix, also sometimes called reorchestration or rework, is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, poem, or photograph ca ...

was made available as a free download on the band's official website. On the Australian

ARIA Charts The ARIA Charts are the main Australian record chart, music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA beca ...

, it reached number ten, and was certified double platinum to indicate shipment of over 140,000 units. It was listed at number four in the 2008 Triple J Hottest 100 popularity poll. "Walking on a Dream" won the category for Single of the Year at the

ARIA Music Awards of 2009 The 23rd Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAs) took place on 26 November 2009 at the Acer Arena at the Sydney Olympic Park complex. The ceremony was telecast on ...

,ARIA Music Awards for Empire of the Sun: * Search results 'Empire of the Sun': * 2009 winners and nominees: * 2010 winners and nominees: * 2013 winners and nominees: and, in the following year, it won Dance Work of the Year at the APRA Awards. Although the single was originally due for release in the United Kingdom on 9 February 2009, the date was postponed until 6 July. In Europe, it reached number eight in both

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

and

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

; and peaked in the top 100 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was made the Single of the Week on the iTunes Store for the week of 21 April 2009. The song was also featured in the 2012 racing video game ''

Forza Horizon ''Forza Horizon'' is a 2012 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 on 23 October 2012. The game is the first installment of the ''Forza'' series, having originally spin-off from Turn ...

'' and later in the 2016 Honda Civic "The Dreamer" commercial, which helped revive the song in the charts, with the song debuting on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 after more than seven years of release, peaking at number 65.

Background

Luke Steele (of

The Sleepy Jackson The Sleepy Jackson are an Australian alternative rock band formed in Perth, Western Australia. The band's name was inspired by a former drummer who was narcoleptic. The band revolves around the distinctive vocal style of multi-instrumentalist ...

) and

(of

Pnau Pnau, stylised as PNAU, is an Australian Electronic dance music, dance music trio originating from Sydney, Australia, Sydney. The trio, a duo before 2016, consists of the musicians Nick Littlemore (vocals, production), Peter Mayes (guitar, produ ...

) formed Empire of the Sun as an electronic duo in 2007. Their debut release, "Walking on a Dream", appeared as a single on 30 August 2008 ahead of the album of the

on 3 October. Steele had assisted on tracks, "With You Forever" and "Freedom", for Pnau's

self-titled An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

album, which was issued in December 2007. As Empire of the Sun, the duo recorded material for ''Walking on a Dream'', including the title track, at Soundworks Music Studio and

Linear Recording Linear Recording is a recording studio complex located in Sydney, Australia, which was established by recording engineer Christopher Vallejo and Emren Kara in 2005. Linear Recording is one of Australia's only dedicated all-analogue recording stu ...

in Sydney during various sessions throughout the latter part of that year. The track was co-written by Littlemore and Steele with Jonathan Sloan. Sloan also co-produced the album with the duo and Littlemore's bandmate,

Peter Mayes Peter Mayes (born 5 October 1976) is an Australian musician and producer. He is widely known for being a leading member of dance act Pnau. He is a longtime collaborator with Nick Littlemore and has produced and mixed many of his projects, most ...

of Pnau.

Sam Littlemore Sam Littlemore (born 2 February 1975), also known as Sam La More, is an Australian record producer, songwriter and recording artist working in Sydney and Los Angeles. Littlemore, a member of dance music trio Pnau, is best known for the internat ...

(Nick's older brother) aka Sam La More

ed the track, which was made available as a free download on the album's official website until December 2008.

Composition

The song is composed in the key of

F minor F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature consists of four flats. Its relative major is A-flat major and its parallel major is F major. Its enharmonic equivalent, E-sharp ...

, with a tempo of 127 bpm.

Chart performance

The song was in a

Honda Civic The is a series of automobiles manufactured by Honda since 1972. , the Civic is positioned between the Honda Fit/Honda City, City and Honda Accord in Honda's global passenger car line-up. The first-generation Civic was introduced in July 1972 ...

commercial in the U.S. in 2016, more than seven years after its original release. This led the song to finally chart in the country, making it their first

Alternative Songs Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks between 1988 and 2009, and Alternative Songs between 2009 and 2020) is a music chart published in the American magazine ''Billboard'' since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-play ...

hit there. On May 14, 2016, the re-released single reached number one on ''Billboard's''

Dance Club Songs The Dance Club Songs (also known as National Disco Action, Hot Dance/Disco Club Play, and Hot Dance Club Play) was a chart published weekly between 1976 and 2020 by ''Billboard'' magazine. It used club disc jockeys set lists to determine the mos ...

chart, seven years after having peaked at number 18 in its first chart run.

Music video

The

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

for the song was shot by Josh Logue on location along

the Bund The Bund is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the wester ...

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, China, in July–August 2008, just prior to the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. It features Steele and Littlemore wearing Eastern costumes and makeup, inspired by

Peking Opera Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines instrumental music, vocal performance, mime, martial arts, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became ...

Track listings

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walking On A Dream (Song) 2007 songs 2008 debut singles APRA Award winners ARIA Award-winning songs Astralwerks singles Capitol Records singles EMI Records singles Empire of the Sun (band) songs Music videos shot in China Songs written by Luke Steele (musician) Songs written by Nick Littlemore