I enjoy me some whistling. I saw a pbs special on dogs and the Shepard had a crazy number of different whistles to communicate with the dog. He even had a whistle that meant turn back you missed one of the sheep. It made me realize that my fondness for whistling may perhaps just be a sub-human primitive response to past animalistic instincts. I also just saw something on tv and the gang on the show used a whistle to notify the other members of their position when separated in the dark. Crazy, anyway I guess I still like whistling, it's the caveman in me.
Advertisers know this as well. There was two commercials in a row and they both had whistling. The first one came on and I thought wow that's a coincidence I am making a whistling mix. Then the second one came on and I realized the advertisers had my number. So I immediately bought some Gerber Baby food and a Subaru Legacy. You won this round corporate consumption. Your sweet whistle was like a Siren's song. It's like that number 23 movie where once you notice it, it seems to be everywhere. Not sure why that was a bad thing, because I never saw the movie and it's just a number but that's ok, you freak the fuck out about it Jim Carey.
So to celebrate this addiction I made a mix of songs that all feature whistling. During my "research" (shout out to google) I found that many people feel the same way and were way ahead of me in terms of compiling lists and asking questions like what is more gimmicky whistling or children's choirs? Most of them had similar songs, so I had to research even further (scroll down farther) and try and find some less famous whistling songs.
I also googled whistling to find a picture for this post and the dude above came up. Apparently it's a still from a documentary about a whistling competition in North Carolina. Sounds like a scenario for a Christopher Guest film. I am kind of interested in seeing it now. Especially since it's called, "Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling."
Download the mix behind the jump.
There were certain songs that I know have whistling in them that were not included because I wasn't out to include every single song with whistling in it. This was in no ways meant to be a complete compendium of the appearance of whistling throughout musical history. I will leave that sort of thing up to the All Whistling Songs Blog. I noticed a sparsity of hip hop included on the blog, which is a shame because the combination of hip hop and whistling usually results in awesomeness. But seriously? How are you ever going to track down every song with whistling in it? It's only natural for huge swaths of whistling music to slip by you when attempting to undertake such an endeavor. I spent a good amount of time scrolling through that blog and then tracking down some of the songs I liked, many thanks to you good sir. I mostly tried to make a mix that didn't just include songs because they had whistling. They also had to be good songs or be so whistleriffic/iconic that they demanded to be included. Case in point, I'm not sure if, "Twisted Nerve" from, "Kill Bill" falls into the good song category, but I just had to include it. Notable exceptions from the mix include, Bobby McFerrin, The Scorpions, Guns and Roses, and Otis Redding.
Previous mixes have featured several songs that fall into this category. There was the RAC version of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's, "Home." Mayer Hawthorne and Nottz with, "I Need You." Eliott Smith covering John Lennon's, "Jealous Guy," which was on one of Tim's mixes, I couldn't remember which one. Also, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. employ whistling in a couple of their songs from previous mixes. Now for some repeats; "Tighten Up" by the Black Keys was on this mix, and two of the songs on this new mix were also on the Moonshine Mix. Barely anyone got that one though so I thought they could be included and be new to most people. Raekwon's, "Pioneers" is also on this mix.
Download it here: Make It Whistle Mix
Feel free to add your favorite songs featuring whistling in the comments below.
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