Whistling

In songs very often very cool, ain't it?

TMBG - whistling in the dark

‘Jimmy Jazz’ - the Clash

‘Die Matrosen’ - Kleenex

‘The stranger’ - Billy Joel ( oops sorry wrong thread)

"Games Without Frontiers" - Peter Gabriel
"Man From China" - Vivabeat
"Young Folks" - Peter, Bjorn and John
"Dock of the Bay" - Otis Redding, and by extension "Eye Know" by De La Soul
"The Fishin' Hole" - Earle Hagen

XTC wanted actual whistling on "Generals and Majors," but none of them could whistle well enough, so they went with a synth..

I can't tell for sure if there's actual whistling at the beginning of "Half Light, Epoch and Phase" by Daniel Amos, or if it's likewise synthesized whistling.. Most likely synthetic, but not out of the question that it's a really good whistler.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2026 03:12PM by breno.

breno Wrote:
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> I can't tell for sure if there's actual whistling
> at the beginning of "Half Light, Epoch and Phase"
> by Daniel Amos, or if it's likewise synthesized
> whistling.. Most likely synthetic, but not out of
> the question that it's a really good whistler.

You stated "Half Light, Epoch, and Phase" but I heard "When Moonlight Sleeps (On the Frosted Hill)" in my head. But when I pulled out my copy of Fearful Symmetry I realized I had the two songs mixed up. (BTW, "When Moonlight Sleeps" does not have whistling but some other high pitch thing going on.) ANYWAY, I looked at the credits in my CD copy of Darn Floor, Big Bite and see that lead guitarist Greg Flesch is also credited with "pan flute," which I suppose is the whistling sound we hear in "Half Light..."

But does it ever really work in a live environment?

Bangles, "Walk Like An Egyptian"

Aitch Wrote:
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> But does it ever really work in a live
> environment?

When LP opened for Bryan Ferry, she whistled on one her songs and that was made my wife become a fan.

'Wonderful' - Circle Jerks (drummer Keith Clark on the whistling solo)

"Young Folks" - Peter, Bjorn & John (known to millions as "that song where they whistle")

“The Good The Bad & The Ugly” theme

DJ Riko’s “Whistler’s Delight” is an awesome 12” mix of many of the tracks listed here.

"Theme From The Andy Griffith Show".... perhaps THE song whose main melody is comprised of whistling, and a tune that gets more
meddlesome every time I hear it.

The other most notable:

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin
"Wind Of Change" by The Scorpions (the song I graduated high school to)
"The Walker" by Fitz and the Tantrums



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2026 01:36AM by Fleeingbandit.

"Jealous Guy" - Roxy Music and the me-too response
"Like An Angel" - Duran Duran

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Five Years Time by Noah & The Whale

Sukiyaki by Ryu Sakamoto
I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman by Whistling Jack Smith

Meat Puppets, The Whistling Song.

Damn, how could I have forgotten that one?! And “Maiden Milk,” too.

"Is That All?" – U2

Selena Gomez - "Kill 'em With Kindness"

I don't see Andrew Bird referenced in here anywhere and I guess he's a TP kinda dude. He whistles a fair amount on his albums (I have a few) and he does it well.

Also, it never occurred to me that it wasn't real whistling on "Generals and Majors"! Learn something new every day, even about songs I have heard easily 1000 times in my lifetime. Next thing you're going to tell me is that the yodeling in "Hocus Pocus" by Focus isn't real either. Pretty sure there's some whistling in that song too.

> It never occurred to me that it wasn't real
> whistling on "Generals and Majors"!

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a lot of "whistling" on recordings (at least from the '80s onward) is produced by digital means. In Joe Jackson's memoir, he talks about how challenging it can be to whistle into a microphone and end up with a pleasing sound. He learned this before beginning his solo career. One of his bandmates sounded great whistling in rehearsals, but it was hit or miss for the guy to get that sound onstage.

I had a completely bizarre mental digression imagining the guy who is a great whistler and does whistling solos on records and in concert, but nothing else, and the band's manager looking at the costs and weighing whether it's worth providing him a per diem and hotel and a space on the van for touring.

A digression from your digression:

About 20 years ago, I saw Damian Marley and his band. Onstage they had a guy who did nothing but wave the Jamaican flag. I thought to myself, "Do they pay him the same salary as the musicians get? That doesn't seem fair if so." Then I watched that poor dude wave that flag, switching from arm to arm, for 90 minutes straight, and thought, "Whatever they're paying him, it's not enough."

"The Limits We Set" - The English Beat