Different Drum Humor: Whistling supplied soundtrack for a lifetime
“If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you … ? You just put your lips together and blow,” goes Lauren Bacall’s famous line from "To Have and Have Not." But not everyone has the ability to whistle.
Fortunately, my father did. He couldn’t NOT whistle. I never thought about it until lung cancer silenced his whistling. Growing up around a whistler, I took whistling for granted. It just was. Familiarity with it relegated whistling to the background of my mind. In Dad’s obituary and memorial folder, I shared his love of farming, fondness for dancing and singing, and penchant for Western novels, but never mentioned the whistling that accompanied all his daily activities. Curious omission.
Thirty years following his death, I still can’t define the repertoire Dad whistled. And I’m a musician. There’s no real excuse for my cluelessness regarding my father’s whistling patterns – except that aside from a few short, favorite ditties, his musical selections were all over the board. He’d whistle everything from country to marching band songs, to Big Band, to instrumentals, the Beach Boys, George Beverly Shea and the Beatles. Once he’d heard a catchy tune, even just once, it got tucked away in his head for later recycling in whistling format.
One time, following a high school stage (jazz) band concert in which I’d played trombone, he surprised me by whistling on our way home the complete saxophone melody line to the song “Candleglow.” Another time he accurately whistled our marching band’s halftime field entrance tune, “Lover,” done in cut time, as opposed to its original waltz tempo. His was never lame, half-hearted whistling, but highly tuneful music.
Building fence, feeding livestock and driving tractors on the farm got Dad spontaneously whistling folk tunes, from “On Top of Old Smoky” to “Turkey in the Straw” and “Danny Boy.” He believed in the Snow White adage, “whistle while you work,” with his puckered renditions of Hank Williams’ “Hey, Good Lookin’” and Eddy Arnold’s “Singin’ the Blues” and “Cattle Call.” He was a living jukebox who’d randomly play tunes.
For kicks, I’d challenge Dad to whistle the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass piano songs I played, requiring speed, stamina and navigating challenging dynamics. “The Work Song” and “Acapulco 1922” are memorable numbers from our after-dinner duets at the dining room piano. If I played Sinatra songs, he’d dump whistling for singing. What a treat. I cherish the video I have of us singing “Strangers in the Night.”
My father never took music lessons, but developed his aptitude by singing and whistling along with the radio while milking his cows twice daily. Even the monthly presence of the milk tester didn’t deter his musicality. He sang anyway.
Back in school, Dad played clarinet and saxophone in band. Occasionally, he’d haul one of his instruments out of our attic and start playing as though he’d never left off. I’d get out Big Band sheet music and we’d go to town. His improvisational ability amazed me. He’d play effortlessly, oblivious to anything but the song – the musician’s musician we’d all like to be.
As a young adult, I bought some Jackie Gleason Orchestra cassette tapes. One listen and Dad was expertly whistling the Bobby Hackett trumpet solo from the 1958 recording of “Once in a While.” He went similarly crazy over Linda Ronstadt and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra recordings of “Crazy He Calls Me” and “Skylark.” Beautiful stuff.
All that whistling had slipped my mind, but recently came back when I witnessed a middle-aged woman do a funny shimmy for her daughter while returning a shopping cart in the Sam’s Club parking lot. I rolled down my window and wolf-whistled at her. Thanks to the inherited whistling gene, the sound carried and she turned and laughed.
My son received a generous gifting of my father’s natural musicality. Watching Connor lose himself in a song he just heard, then re-sing it is something special. He also whistles without realizing he’s doing it. At times we’ve whistled together and we’re eerily synchronized in our phrasing and intonation. That would please my dad; it also makes me both Whistler’s Mother and Whistler’s Daughter: my musical claims to fame.
Kristy Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Reporter: Opinion
