Snowy flakes are falling softly

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I remember a line from a song at primary school that went… “Snowy flakes are falling softly, covering all the world in white…” I don’t know how it continues, but I do know that every time it starts to snow, those words start singing to me. What’s more, they are often accompanied by the taste of Dutch Shortcake. Proustian? Maybe. Maybe not.

Both the words and the biscuits came to me today – the latter in a blue and silver packet – when I looked out of the window to see a sky positively laden with snow. They are with me now, dancing around me like the snow flakes the song describes, and leaving me in no doubt that wherever I was when I first experienced their delights, must have been good, comforting places.

Perhaps that is why I have always loved snow so much.

Category: Berlin, Childhood, Seasons | Tags: , ,

44 comments on “Snowy flakes are falling softly”

  1. I sang and loved that song at primary school too and I think of it every Christmas! Here is the full lyric:

    Snowly flakes are falling softly

    Clothing all the world in white

    High above the stars are shining

    Twinkling through the wintry night

    Was it just like this, we wonder,

    Starry bright and crisp and cold

    On that Christmas night of old?

    Angels spread their wondrous story:

    Jesus Christ is born today

    “Peace on earth,” they sang, “and glory

    Be to God on High alway”

    So we sing the sweetest carols

    Telling how the King of love

    Came to save from heaven above

    There is a recording of it by boy treble Eamonn Mulhall, although I’m pretty sure the melody he sings is far more complicated than the one I remember!

    • Hi Steven
      I am now enlightened! And glad to meet a fellow snowy flakes lover. A happy Christmas to you.
      Tamsin

      • Crikey. I remember this from the early 1060s

    • nearly 50 years since I sang this song. y belated aunt and I loved this song x

    • I remember it’s as snowy flakes were softly falling clothing all the world in white, not falling softly but that could just be me

    • I remember this from junior school in the 1960’s. We learned it from a schools radio programme called Time and Tune. I love this song, it brings back such happy childhood memories. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I discovered this posting on here. Thank you so very much.

    • I remember this song. My mum wanted me to sing it to the family and bribed me by paying me. Haha.
      Great memories of the 60’s. 🙏🙏🙏

  2. OMG how strange this song came into my head at the coffe bar at work loved it every time we sang it at school it snowed so happy memories

  3. I sang that song in my church choir when I was about 10 years old and I still remember the opening line and melody today, more than 40 years later!!! Thank you so much for publishing the full lyrics!

    • Hi Michele

      I guess there must be something about that song, because it has always stuck with me too. It can hold its own with the best of children’s Christmas chorals. I never hear it, but when I think about it, I am immediately transported back to a cold assembly hall with garish orange 1970s curtains.

      Thanks for your comment. Thank you for reading:)
      Tamsin

  4. I am invited to a party where we have to bring a poem, song or story from childhood. I was singing Snowy Flakes to myself this morning. I sang it in a junior church choir almost 50 years ago. I remember almost all the words but googled it to check on a few and found your blog. I still remember how we had to breath out on the “Ws” on world and white to project them. The song comes back to me everytime we have big fluffy flakes falling.

  5. I remember singing this primary school, The song came to me today.. it’s been 41 years since I last sung it. 1/1/2014 Happy new Year

    Snowly flakes are falling softly

    Clothing all the world in white

    High above the stars are shining

    Twinkling through the wint’ry night

    Was it just like this, we wonder,

    Starry bright and crisp and cold

    On that Christmas night of old?

    Angels spread their wondrous story:

    Jesus Christ is born today

    “Peace on earth,” they sang, “and glory

    Be to God on High alway”

    So we sing the sweetest carols

    Telling how the King of love

    Came to save from heaven above

  6. I wonder why this was only sung in the ’60s and ’70s. I used to sing this to my baby brother to lull him to sleep. I think about it every Christmas and wonder why it is no longer popular. I am going to print out the words and teach it to my children this Christmas. Thanks so much!

    • I sang this in around 1956 at my primary school in West Bromwich, England and on another website I read it was sung in Southern Australia about 1951.

  7. I learnt this when I was in primary school in England. 50yrs have passed and it still is one of my most loved Christmas carols, although so few of us know it. I looked up the words to sing it for a Christmas party that my Dad and I are to perform at next week. Here is the copy of the words for you. Merry Christmas to all of the lovely people who still remember it :D

    Snowly flakes are falling softly

    Covering all the world in white

    High above the stars are shining

    Twinkling through the wint’ry night

    Was it just like this, we wonder,

    Starry bright and crisp and cold

    On that Christmas night of old?

    Angels spread their wondrous story:

    Jesus Christ is born today

    “Peace on earth,” they sang, “and glory

    Be to God on High alway”

    So we sing the sweetest carols

    Telling how the King of love

    Came to earth from heaven above.

    • We definitely sang clothing, not covering.

      • We sang clothing too! I haven’t heard this song since I was in infants school in the 70s!

    • Remember this from primary school but no one else I know seem to know it – it always pops into my head when it starts to snow as well . Glad I’m not going mad and it really does exist and other people love it like I do xxxx

  8. We sang this song, too, in grade school-in the 1950’s, in St. Louis, Missouri, in mid-America. Must be the German Lutheran background. I’m using the first verse in my cards this season. Merry Christmas to you all!

  9. When I was three and a half years old in 1950 I went with my aunt Betty to her choir practice just before Christmas at her local church in Park Hall Clydebank Glasgow. They sang this and I have never forgotten it; it was actually snowing and we were out so long my father was sent out like good King Wenceslas to find us.

  10. I only remembered the first line but I always recalled the melody. I sang this in my early school days probably in grade 4 in Kelowna B.C. in Canada. The tune came to my mind today after 60 yrs. and triggered nostalgia and sentimentality over those lost day. A part of the later years of life no doubt.

  11. I too remember this from 50 years ago only remember the first line been looking for it for years found it now.

  12. We only ever sang this in infants school and I haven’t heard it since. I’ve downloaded a version from Spotify. Memories!

  13. I have been searching for this lyric for over 25 years. My late sister brought this beautiful carol into our home sometime in the early sixties. The melody came to me while reading the words just now.
    Thank you.

  14. We sang it in grade school also.
    Snowy flakes are falling softly
    covering all the world in white
    Up above the stars are shining
    giving off a celestial light

    that’s all I got on lyrics, I still remember the melody.
    best song we ever had to sing
    Merry Christmas

    • Hi Gerry, I remember the melody too. Wonder if anyone still sings it…

      • Hi Tamasin, snowing in Hull E.Yorks this morning. Queuing for a coffee in M&S, all of a sudden I started singing the snowy song, the girls behind the counter had never heard it, my wife said she had never heard it. So went on line great to find full lyrics and comments. I remember it from the 50s

        • Is it really snowing in Hull? How nice. No snow in Berlin yet, but I am waiting patiently for those flakes to softly fall. Truly does seem to be a song lost in time. Time to revive it;)

          • Hi Tamsin,
            The east coast is getting an Artic Blast at the moment, My grandson and his girlfriend were in Berlin last week, brought photos home of the>Brandensburg< gate. Hope you get snow for Christmas, so do we.
            Seasons greetings
            Bob

  15. I have always loved this song but only knew some of the lyrics. It takes me right back to the magical feeling of Christmas when I was a child.
    Lorraine

    • Hi Lorraine
      So many people seem to have fond memories of this song. A gem obscured by time.
      Thanks for getting in touch.
      Tamsin

      • I was just listing my favourite carols on my Facebook page and this song popped up in my mind as it has done at odd times over the years. I only remembered a few lines but thought I would google it and was happy to find your thread and the complete carol. It is a really special carol and yet no one I have ever met knows it. The lines I remember that take me straight back to my early school days in the seventies- ‘Snowy flakes are falling softly clothing all the world in white. Was it just like this we wonder, starry bright and crisp and cold, on that first Christmas night of old’. Thanks Tamsin and everyone.

  16. I’ve been looking for the words for this Christmas song for years… thank you for posting going to sing it with children’s choir this year x

  17. Remember this song from primary school in Edinburgh Scotland around 1950 and loved it and it has stuck with me ever since. Have also wondered why we don’t hear more of it. Am going to sing it this season at seniors homes with my seniors choir and can guarantee lots of snowy flakes outside here in Ottawa, Canada.
    Best of the season.

  18. Love this carol, the first I remember learning in infant class in 1945, and still word perfect. Brings back so many happy times, Christmas at home with parents, little brother a new baby, grabdoarents, it is the epitome of Christmas for me. ❤️❤️❤️

  19. Love this song from my childhood, so glad to find lyrics
    We in Wales sang ‘ covering’
    Will pass this to my grandchildren in the future as I loved it

  20. I remember this carol from the late thirties to the early forties at Church Road Primary School in Leyton London. The theme and first line has never left me and I am now in my eighty fifth year. Good to know that I’m not alone with this memory.

  21. I Remember this song also .
    Really Beautiful x

  22. I remember singing this in primary school. No one had ever heard of it and they thought I was making it up.

  23. I too found your site because I was searching for this song. Wow, So surprised so many have responded to this tread. I’ve also never met anyone (other than my classmates) that had heard this song. I sang this about 50 years ago in Connecticut, in grade school and still remember the song as if it were yesterday. We sang it in two part harmony and it was so beautiful and simple. I found a youtube video that has a little girl (Jayda) who sings it exactly how I remember it (minus the harmonies). If anyone else visiting this site wants to go down memory lane, you can see the video by click on the link below.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeCaROjsG5w

    • Hi Susan, thanks for your comment. It’s just a really pretty little carol:)

  24. This Christmas carol was sung in Banffshire/Aberdeenshire Primary schools in the early 1950s. It is a Polish Carol Melody nowadays sung to the words ‘Infant holy, Infant lowly’ which is a translation from Polish.

    On the same theme, can anyone supply the words of another children’s carol of the same era. I cannot remember the opening but I think the second verse began ‘And his gentle mother smiled, crooned a tender lullaby, da de da de da da da, never babe as sweet as this’.

  25. I’m delighted to find so many other lovers of this song. I always find myself starting to sing it at Christmas, and on days when it is snowing like today, but couldn’t remember all the words, so it’s super to find them all here. I remember singing it in the mid-50s in my Infant School in Romsey, Hampshire. I’ve searched in vain for the words for years, and had wondered if it was something my teacher had made up. Thanks Tamsin for your initial posting and everyone else for your contributions. Definitely a well-loved song. It’s great to be reunited with it.

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