Songs With Whistling

The only instrument everybody owns and nobody should play in an elevator.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A pair of bright retro high-top sneakers on an empty school hallway floor under flickering fluorescent lights.

    10. Pumped Up Kicks

    Foster the People · 2010

    Mark Foster, then a jingle writer, made it in about five hours and played everything himself. A breezy whistled hook over lyrics about a troubled kid with a gun, which a lot of people singing along did not notice. Eight weeks at No. 3. Read the lyrics sometime.

  2. A choppy ferry deck crossing the English Channel with an ancient Egyptian tomb painting panel propped against the railing.

    09. Walk Like an Egyptian

    The Bangles · 1986

    Written after the songwriter watched ferry passengers on a choppy English Channel stagger like figures in Egyptian tomb paintings. The whistled hook sold the joke and the song was Billboard's top single of 1987. The ferry never got royalties.

  3. A sun-faded yellow beach chair by a tropical shore, with a cassette tape and a hammock swaying between palm trees.

    08. Don't Worry, Be Happy

    Bobby McFerrin · 1988

    No instruments: every part is McFerrin's voice, overdubbed, plus whistling. First a cappella No. 1 on the Hot 100, three Grammys including Record and Song of the Year. The title came from a Meher Baba poster. The Bush campaign used it; McFerrin was not happy.

  4. A white grand piano in a sunlit English country room, a single wilted rose resting on the closed lid.

    07. Jealous Guy

    John Lennon · 1971

    Began as Child of Nature, written during the Beatles' trip to India in 1968, and became a confession on Imagine, with Lennon whistling through the bridge. Roxy Music's 1981 cover was their only UK No. 1. The whistling is the most relaxed apology in pop.

  5. A park by a river in Moscow at night, a red balalaika on a bench and autumn leaves blowing past a crumbling concrete wall.

    06. Wind of Change

    Scorpions · 1991

    Klaus Meine wrote it after a Moscow festival in 1989 and whistles the intro over the end of the Cold War. About 14 million sold, the best-selling single by a German artist. A 2020 podcast floated a CIA theory; Meine called it entertaining. It's still just a whistle.

  6. A row of oversized foam costume heads and inflatable obstacles on a muddy European game show field, a toy tank parked among them.

    05. Games Without Frontiers

    Peter Gabriel · 1980

    War as a European TV game show with teams in silly costumes. Producers Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham whistle it, Kate Bush sings the French hook, and Gabriel kept her part secret until it was a hit. Peaked at No. 4, tied for his best UK showing ever.

  7. A worn acoustic guitar leaning against a porch railing beside a red bandana and an hourglass running down.

    04. Patience

    Guns N' Roses · 1989

    Three acoustic guitars, recorded in one session, Axl Rose whistling the intro like a man waiting on a porch. It hit No. 4. Coming from the most chaotic band of the era, a song about patience whistled by its least patient member is a kind of performance art.

  8. A bicycle with a basket of vinyl records leaning against a Stockholm lamppost on a crisp spring morning.

    03. Young Folks

    Peter Bjorn and John · 2006

    The whistle was a placeholder so they'd remember the melody; they meant to replace it with an instrument. Then it was in Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother and a Google ad that called it that hipster song with whistling. Never replace the placeholder.

  9. A row of wooden crosses on a sunny hillside under a bright blue sky, with a cheerful yellow daisy growing at the base of one.

    02. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

    Eric Idle · 1979

    Sung by men being crucified at the end of Life of Brian, with Neil Innes doing the whistling. It flopped as a single, then reached No. 3 in the UK in 1991 after a Radio 1 DJ revived it. By 2014 it was Britain's most popular funeral song. That tracks.

  10. A weathered wooden dock in a San Francisco Bay harbor at dusk, an empty pair of shoes at the edge and seagulls circling a houseboat.

    01. (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay

    Otis Redding · 1968

    Started on a houseboat in Sausalito, finished with Steve Cropper, recorded three days before Redding died in a plane crash. It became the first posthumous No. 1 in the US. Cropper added the gulls and waves. The whistled fade-out sounds like a man with all the time in the world.

Honorable mentions

  • Three empty gun belts hanging on a weathered wooden cemetery cross in a vast desert, a coyote silhouetted on a far ridge.

    The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

    Ennio Morricone · 1966

    A film theme, not a song, but whistling, a coyote-howl melody, ocarina and choir made it the sound of the West. Hugo Montenegro's cover went to No. 2 in the US and No. 1 in the UK in 1968. Every cartoon standoff since has been borrowing it.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A shiny silver referee whistle on a beach towel next to a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of sunscreen.

    Whistle

    Flo Rida · 2012

    A No. 1 song in which the whistle is not a whistle, and nobody was fooled. One critic called it the least subtle song ever. Flo Rida said he keeps it clean but you can take it another way. Everyone did.

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