"Halfway Down" is a poem by A.A. Milne, included in 1924 collection When We Were Very Young. A "juvenile mediation", Zena Sutherland comments in her "Children & Books" that both the poem and Ernest Shepard's illustration "has caught the mood of suspended action that is always overtaking small children on stairs."^[1] Christopher Robin, the child in Milne's Winnie the Pooh stories, is the presumed narrator of the poem.^[2]

[edit] Song based on poem

Harold Fraser-Simson, who put many of Milne's poems to music, adapted the verse. The resulting song, Halfway Down the Stairs, was used in the first season of The Muppet Show. Robin's most significant performance during the season, it was used before he became known as Kermit's nephew, staged in the middle of a flight. The sequence was reshot for a few different countries' broadcast of the tenth episode, with guest Harvey Korman.

Included on the LP The Muppet Show, it was later released separately, reaching #7 on the UK Singles Chart in 1977.^[3] The sequence was refilmed for inclusion of Top of The Pops.

The track would later be rereleased on the CD The Best of The Muppets, and VHS Playhouse Video: Children's Songs and Stories. Rowlf the Dog sang a cover of this song in his album, Ol' Brown Ears is Back.

In 2009, singer Amy Lee of Evanescence chose this song to cover in the 2010 soundtrack, rumored to be titled, Muppet's Revisited.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "Halfway Down"
• Muppet Wiki: "Halfway Down the Stairs"