The Friday Fillip: Whistling

Nobody whistles anymore. Seems to me you could once walk down the street and hear the people you passed whistling tunes. I remember indulging in a kind of stealth tune stealing, where I’d quietly join the whistler’s tune and gradually up my volume, maybe adding a cadenza or two, until the song was mine alone. I don’t remember learning to whistle, though I do remember being mightily impressed that my dad could do it — and could send out a shrill blast through his teeth when needed. This loud whistle so got to me that I sweated long and hard to copy it, failing until a girl taught me how to whistle using two fingers, as we walked home from school (Thank you, Edie Howell. And yes, I really did like you.).

But the tuneful whistle has vanished. Which is a shame. It’s a cool thing that human beings can do. Gets us closer to birds. People who maybe can’t sing on key can make good music with a whistle. And that may be the problem: it’s about making music. At the moment there’s a whole lot of consuming of music and not so much impromptu making, perhaps. Besides, with earphones in, who can hear his whistle?

Proving me wrong and also making my case is this video, “History of Whistling,” by cdza, which whips you through fragments of 26 pop songs spanning 96 years, songs in which there was whistling. (You may wish to look at their other video “History Of Lyrics That Aren’t Lyrics” as well. The singer is good.)

But pop songs, or pop whistlers from the past like Roger Whittaker, are not what really concern me. I’m missing the street whistle, your pursed-lipped rendition of whatever your mind happens to publish as you stroll along or examine shop windows. I’m missing the whistling truck driver who bangs the beer kegs down on the sidewalk and rolls them, happy, into the pub. The reedy whistle of the kid learning her craft.