Whistling Dixie

Early summer is one of my favourite times of the year as the long evenings force back, albeit for a short while, the incessant chill of the British weather. Those first days of proper sunshine make the harshness of winter momentarily fade into memory and the mind starts to wander to barbecues and lazy weekends. It is always the time, also, that I start to reach for tunes, catalogued in the mind as summer jams. There are numerous examples of course, but one I reached for the other day just reminded me how fitting a tune can sometimes be to the mood you are in. Is there ever a bad time for Otis' "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay"? What got me this time, wait for it, was the whistling. I mean...whistling!?! Whose idea was that? Think about it, how perfectly fitted is the whistling to this tune. Now try to think of other examples where whistling in a song has actually sounded good (don't start telling me that the whistled verse from "Walk Like an Egyptian" is classic!). As we know this song was recorded a couple of days before Redding's tragic death in an air crash on 10 December 1967, just as he was on the verge of becoming a major star. Otis originally whistled the section at the end of a long recording day because he had yet to write a final verse, and it was left in by the song's co-composer and Booker T guitarist Steve Cropper, who also added the seaside noises to the backing track in his tender and affectionate post-production following Otis' death. So not only is the whistling an example of genius musical improvisation, but also one of Otis Redding's last recorded sounds. Genius! Now try to imagine the song without the whistling .... Doesn't work, right!?