Whither Whistlin'?

Does anybody remember whistlin? I'm not sure. This morning I spent a few idle minutes sitting on the back porch doing nothing but listening to birds whistle. Mellifluous cacophony. One in particular sounded most familiar: choooo choooo ch ch ch ch chooooo. Either that bird's been around a helluva long time, or that mating call's been so successful it's been passed down through the generations. I remember lying in my bed as a kid underneath an open window as the morning breezes rustled the large acorn tree's upper limbs right outside the window. That same choooo choooo ch ch ch ch chooooo greeted me to a new day.

It all got me thinking. Does anybody whistle anymore? Seems like you could always count on some old guy entering your daily orbit whistling some old air. And those old guys could whistle, some of them even appeared to be able to harmonize with themselves. I can't remember the last time I encountered someone who was randomly whistling a tune. Could it be that rock songs don't lend themselves to easy, happy whistling (try whistling "Johnny B. Goode" or "Get Off My Cloud"--you're liable to give yourself a hernia or heart attack), and that now that many old guys are children of the rock era, whistling is becoming obsolete? Has the social kibosh that's been put on whistling at girls filtered down to eliminating all whistling? Why, when I think of whistling, do I always think of men? Except, naturally, for Lauren "Just Put Your Lips Together And Blow" Bacall.

My dad was a decent whistler, tune-wise, but he was a Michelangelo of the loud, hey you! whistle. He could quickly contort his mouth and, with no help from any fingers, let out a shrieky whistle that could startle a desert monk. I wish I had inherited that attention-getter. As it is, I painstakingly taught myself the two fingers from each hand stuffed on top of a folded back tongue whistle. Not bad (though it must be twenty years at least since I've utilized it), but nothing compared to the old man's. But again, when was the last time you heard such a hey you! whistle?

Now I'm not as up on current popular music as I used to be, and for all I know Lady Gaga is a whistlin' dervish, but when was the last great song to employ whistling? Besides those great movie theme songs I don't even have to mention, and the Andy Griffith Show theme song, of course, I do remember a few great rock songs with significant whistles. In fact, while pondering all of this today I heard Otis Redding whistling away his time sitting on the dock of the bay. The Beatles of course whistled their way through "Two Of Us" and Peter Gabriel not only whistled but mentioned whistling tunes in "Games Without Frontiers." I'm sure there are a host of others, but those are the ones that stick on the tip of my tongue. As well as my good old friends the Meat Puppets, who not only have a song called "The Whistling Song," which doesn't really whistle, but a song called "Maiden's Milk," which is all about whistling.

I don't know, maybe I'm old and nostalgic, but I think if we whistled more, maybe we could reduce some of the negative energy around these days. Something tells me things would be a little more civilized with more whistling in the air. So go ahead now, put your lips together and blow.




Meat Puppets--Maiden's Milk