Whistling solos

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Ever since Guns and Roseses 'Patience' and Scorpionses 'Wild of Chage', the whistling solo has been seen as sort of a cliched 80s relic, a symptom of the over-earnest power ballad, and generally a negative thing.

Well I don't think this is fair. I think it's nigh time the whistling solo came back, and was unironically re-welcomed as a sincere and earnest way of making a heartfelt ballad of emotion resonate with love and feelings and shit. Who's with me?

[Olarrio]

I love a good whistle in a song.

"Looking Back Over My Shoulder" - Mike and the Mechanics

[swordfish_bhoona]

A particularly memorable one is lovely head by goldfrapp.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Posted in another thread.

Andrew Bird- Souverian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YYnN0R03K0

[holyzombiejesus]

Teenage Fanclub - Mellow Doubt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j85MhM_gCTQ&list=RDj85MhM_gCTQ

[Thomas]

The Whistling Caruso -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrkIxTYymyE

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

Die Matrosen - Liliput

All-female Swiss post-punk, what's not to love?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uTvxUiDbac

[great_badir]

Hocus Pocus by Focus.  Also features an accordion solo, and the yodelling, for which it is most famous.

[vrailaine]

You mean Roger Whittaker type stuff?

[Crabwalk]

Take a stroll along the boulevard with Fitness Forever's 'Albertone':

http://youtu.be/0nCqwE_8vVs

[Maurice Yeatman]

'Winchester Cathedral' by The New Vaudeville Bonzo Dog Band: http://youtu.be/Wv_RfFmJ5nA?t=2m52s

Re the first tag, any excuse to repost the high five that never was.

[Glebe]

Can't believe it hasn't been posted yet:

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding.

A couple more... darn it, I'm sure there were one or two others I had in mind:

Sail Away - David Gray.

Helpless - Faith No More.

[Don_Preston]

Gedge attempts one in Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft, fails, and gives a high pitched laugh-yelp.

[Vodka Margarine]

I do like a good, well executed whistling hook in a song, like in XTC's Generals and Majors[nb]not technically 'whistling' really[/nb] or Roxette's Joyride.

There was also some big euro-dance hit from about ten years ago that goes "Feel the love generation!" that had a funky little bit of whistling in it. The song was fucking awful but I did like that bit.

[zonko]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVeeyNNaBdA

[wosl]

If you can put up with some of the rather toe-curling lyrics, Hans-Joachim Roedelius does a splendid little bit of whistling on this. 

[Catalogue Trousers]

Don't forget Jonathan Ross's lovely little bit of trilling in the middle eight of Vic Reeves's I Remember Punk Rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVF_Pui1lAs

[SteveDave]

Don't forget Jonathan Ross's lovely little bit of trilling in the middle eight of Vic Reeves's I Remember Punk Rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVF_Pui1lAs

Bastard. I was just coming on to post that. He's credited as Jonathan "One Take" Ross in the sleevenotes.

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

I really like this Meatpuppets song, title says it all!

A nice melancholy whistle that one can try in the safety of one's home

The Whistling Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF-kTvVRjpc

Seeing live videos of them these days, the Meatpuppets look like the coolest old hippies in the world

[Petey Pate]

Bill Withers - Kissing My Love

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

There's a bit of whistling at around 3/4 of the way thorugh "How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths.

MSP hired a professional whistler to spruce up "You're Tender And You're Tired", the best thing on TIMTTMY and what should have been a single.

[holyzombiejesus]

Never Understand by Jesus and Mary Chain features some people whistling all the way through. There's some more whistling in many of the songs on their debut LP Psychocandy, particularly on In A Hole, although it sounds a bit out of tune and discordant to these ears. I hope if they get the whistlers to play live with them on the forthcoming tour, they at least hire ones that can whistle in tune.

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music is almost entirely comprised of whilstling although, like JAMC, not done very tunefully. Stick to the singing Lou!

[Ray Travez]

There's a bit of whistling at around 3/4 of the way thorugh "How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths.

...whereas Moz attempts the full Whittaker in the intro to I Keep Mine Hidden

There's a brief snatch at 3.04 of New FADS' Music is Shit.

...some tuneless squeaks at the end of Julian Cope's Sunspots... (here) edit- now I think of it, that isn't so much a solo as a possible attempt to mimic a fox.

[TheMonk]

Nice use of whistling
http://youtu.be/hRzGzRqNj58

Bad use of whistling
http://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU

[great_badir]

Bad use of whistling
http://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU

Awwww, why diss the Bobster?

He is beyond dissing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4BhsYbXwf4

[Vodka Margarine]

Air's Alpha Beta Gaga. Swiftly became an 'advert song' and thus ruined forever.

See also: 'Young Folks' and 'Five Years Time'.

What is it about whistling that advertising wankers are so obsessed by?

[Brundle-Fly]

A whistle sample I've had going round my head since the bloody thing was released thirty years ago.

Break Machine --- Street Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDhzZ7jAUKA

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Some bird-like trilling from Evan Dando(?)

The Lemonheads - If I Could Talk I'd Tell You

http://youtu.be/K_GysqAFUHY?t=2m3s