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    In Praise of Whistling in Pop Music

    Billy Joel has a new song coming next week. Before it arrives, revisit “The Stranger” and tracks by Juelz Santana, Dick Hyman and more.Billy Joel’s “The Stranger” is a classic whistle song. Next week, he’ll release a new track titled “Turn the Lights Back On.”Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesDear listeners,When Billy Joel was working on what would become his breakout 1977 album, “The Stranger,” he played the opening chords of the title track for his producer Phil Ramone, whistling a melody that he imagined another instrument would play in the final recording. “I whistle the whole thing and I finish,” he wrote in 2013, “I look at him and I say, ‘So what instrument should that be?’” Ramone responded, “You just did it.” The rest is music history.On Monday, Joel announced he’ll be releasing his first new pop single in nearly two decades next week. Fortuitous timing! While listening to “The Stranger” over the weekend, I found myself considering the pop musical whistle.It’s such a simple expression, but in a song it can convey a wide range of feelings and tones. A whistle can be childlike and playful (see: the whistle solo on Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”) or it can be an adult expression of vulnerability (like the broken whistle that John Lennon musters on the wrenching “Jealous Guy”). Some whistles are innocent as lambs, and others — particularly those of the “wolf” variety — are unmistakably lascivious. Best of all, though, it’s a free instrument that almost all of us carry all the time. You don’t even need to take lessons to play it passably.While we await Joel’s latest, “Turn the Lights Back On” (which may or may not feature a whistle break), today’s playlist is a homage to the pop musical whistle, in all its glory and multitudes. I hope these 10 songs will wet your … well, never mind. And if you don’t know how to whistle along, you can always consult Lauren Bacall.Listen along on Spotify while you read.1. Billy Joel: “The Stranger”The aforementioned whistle acts as a kind of theme for the album “The Stranger,” setting its tone and recurring later, at the tail end of the closing track. Joel said the feeling he was going for was the “sound of a man walking down a Parisian street at night, and the streets are all glistening from rain.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Caroline Polachek: “Bunny Is a Rider”A repeated, beckoning whistle urges on Caroline Polachek’s restless heroine in this 2021 single, which plays out like a kind of pop travelogue. (Listen on YouTube)3. Peter Gabriel: “Games Without Frontiers”Peter Gabriel, hauntingly, depicts war as a kind of children’s game on this lilting hit from 1980, which features backing vocals from Kate Bush, invoking the French name of the European game show “Jeux sans frontières.” The whistled motif that echoes throughout is at once playful and eerie. (Listen on YouTube)4. Peter Bjorn and John: “Young Folks”I almost included this 2006 tune on my “Summer of Saltburn” playlist a few weeks ago, but it’s an even better fit here. “Young Folks,” the best-known track from the Swedish indie-pop group Peter Bjorn and John, has a happy-go-lucky whistled refrain that immediately recalls a particular sense of mid-2000s whimsy. (Listen on YouTube)5. Paul Simon: “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”Speaking of whimsy, here’s a Paul Simon classic that also made an appearance on my Wes Anderson playlist last year. The song’s arrangement is so light and childlike that a midsong guitar solo would be too intense — so, Simon wisely reasoned, how about a whistle solo? (Listen on YouTube)6. Dick Hyman: “The Moog and Me”You may recognize this one thanks to Beck, who memorably sampled it in the intro of his “Odelay” track “Sissyneck.” A whistled melody snakes through a 1969 song from the jazz pianist and electronic music pioneer Dick Hyman, who contrasts familiar human-generated sounds with the synthetic ones made with the a Moog synthesizer, then a novel instrument. (Listen on YouTube)7. Juelz Santana: “There It Go (the Whistle Song)”A minimalist, melodically descending whistle provides the infectious hook for this 2005 hit by the New York rapper and Cam’ron collaborator Juelz Santana, and provides the main reason this song still gets stuck in my head all the time. “I decided to simplify,” Santana once said of the song’s composition. “I knew that the whistle would be something that people would come back to — and be distinctive. People don’t want to hear too much.” (Listen on YouTube)8. John Lennon featuring the Plastic Ono Band: “Jealous Guy”I appreciate the wobbly imperfection in the whistling solo in the middle of this one because it heightens the vulnerability that Lennon channels throughout a deeply personal song. (Listen on YouTube)9. Guns N’ Roses: “Patience”A karaoke standard — even more so if you can match Axl Rose note for note in his extended whistle intro. (Listen on YouTube)10. Otis Redding: “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay”Finally, I’ll play you out with this all-timer from Otis Redding, who perfectly captures the laid-back feeling of “sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wasting time” by idly whistling a tune as the song fades out. (Listen on YouTube)Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“In Praise of Pop Music Whistling” track listTrack 1: Billy Joel, “The Stranger”Track 2: Caroline Polachek, “Bunny Is a Rider”Track 3: Peter Gabriel, “Games Without Frontiers”Track 4: Peter Bjorn and John, “Young Folks”Track 5: Paul Simon, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”Track 6: Dick Hyman, “The Moog and Me”Track 7: Juelz Santana, “There It Go (The Whistle Song)”Track 8: John Lennon featuring the Plastic Ono Band, “Jealous Guy”Track 9: Guns N’ Roses, “Patience”Track 10: Otis Redding, “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” More

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    Whistling as an Art Almost Died Off. Can Molly Lewis Keep It Alive?

    The 31-year-old has whistled at tournaments, in the studio for Dr. Dre and at her Los Angeles lounge show, Café Molly. Now she’s releasing her debut EP.Molly Lewis lives at the top of a steep hill in East Los Angeles, where a group of feral peafowl roam idly around, as if they own the place. Peacocks and peahens don’t have much of a bird song — they emit a sharp “caw” that is “not cute,” Lewis said — but other birds have found themselves in conversation with the 31-year-old whistler.“If I’m out walking in the woods and I hear a birdcall, I try to mimic it,” she said, lamenting that the chats are a little one-sided: “I’ve probably got a terrible accent in ‘bird.’”Humans tend to be more impressed. By her early 20s, Lewis was a veteran of the niche world of competitive whistling; in 2015, she took first prize in the women’s live-band division at the Masters of Musical Whistling tournament. These days, she’s more focused on Café Molly, her lounge show that’s become a trendy affair in Los Angeles nightlife.Led by Lewis and her band, the act usually features special guests: John C. Reilly has stopped by to perform Slim Whitman, and the indie rocker Mac DeMarco to do some Frank Sinatra. All the while, Lewis will stand at the mic, pursing her lips when it’s time to play her parts.The show also helped her get a record contract. Scouts for the label Jagjaguwar reached out after attending a Café Molly event, and in lockdown, Lewis learned guitar, which helped her write formal songs. On Friday, she’ll release her first EP, “The Forgotten Edge,” made with the help of the producer Thomas Brenneck, best known for his work with Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley. The set is part tiki-bar exotica and part spaghetti-western dreamscape, each track anchored by Lewis’s theremin-like whistle. (Pre-orders come with a mint lip balm.)“I always felt like we were making soundtracks for lost films,” Lewis said.The EP was named after the colloquial term for Lewis’s micro-neighborhood at the top of the peafowl-ridden hill by Dodger Stadium. “It’s officially called Victor Heights,” she said on a recent warm afternoon, walking up a particularly steep street to a scenic overlook. For a time, she explained while gasping for air, these few blocks weren’t clearly assigned to any police precinct, leading it to have a lawless reputation. “That’s why it became known as” — here, she adopted a dramatic tone, as if introducing a radio mystery — “‘the Forgotten Edge.’ I just loved that name. It sounded so noir.”Video by Brian Overend for The New York TimesLewis was born in Sydney, but raised in Los Angeles, eventually returning to Australia for high school and college. (Her family lives in Mullumbimby, known as “the Biggest Little Town in Australia.”) She comes from an artistically inclined household: Her mother, Rhyl, is a music supervisor, and her father, Mark, is a documentary filmmaker, specializing in animals and subcultures. His influential 1988 film, “Cane Toads: An Unnatural History,” is viewed in schools around the world.When Lewis took an interest in whistling as a teenager, her parents showed her the 2005 documentary “Pucker Up,” which goes behind the scenes at the now-defunct International Whistlers Convention, in Louisburg, N.C., and has a Christopher Guest-like quality to it. Not long after, she was competing in Louisburg herself, winning the “Whistler Who Traveled the Greatest Distance” award in 2012. Lewis moved to Los Angeles a year later, where whistling gigs of all types, from touring to session work, eventually took over. (She was recently in the studio to play a whistle part for Dr. Dre.)The city “just kind of had a spell on me,” Lewis said. “But I also think L.A. is the only place in the world where I can do what I’m doing. I really don’t think this would have happened anywhere else.”Lewis gravitates toward the older establishments in the city — places where the food may not be great, but the ambience is. “Go to Hollywood, any restaurant, and Molly’s going to know the 80-year-old bartender,” said DeMarco, whose partner, Kiera McNally, is close with Lewis and appears in the video for the track “Oceanic Feeling,” alongside Reilly and a well-behaved hawk. “That’s Molly’s vibe.”“I want to play beautiful music that makes people feel something,” Lewis said. “And it just so happens that whistling is the only thing I can do that allows me entry into the world of musicians.”Brian Overend for The New York TimesIn true form, when asked where she might like to grab a bite to eat, Lewis suggested the Tam O’Shanter, a storybook-style roadhouse in Atwater Village that dates back to 1922. She trusted the waiter’s suggestion for a cocktail (the “Table 31,” named for the corner spot where Walt Disney used to regularly sit), and studied the menu with amusement. “What is a ‘toad in the hole’?” she asked, laughing.Within the Tam O’Shanter’s lifetime, whistling was a relatively common act in the music world. Artists like Elmo Tanner and Muzzy Marcellino made careers for themselves with their lips, and in 1967, the whistling song “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman” became an international hit.Is the ever-increasing speed of society replacing life’s simple pleasures with more complex ones? “I do think, in some sense, it is a lost art in that way,” Lewis said of her vocation. But revivalism isn’t really her goal. And if she remains the only indie-rock whistler for her entire life, that’s fine, too.“I want to play beautiful music that makes people feel something,” she said. “And it just so happens that whistling is the only thing I can do that allows me entry into the world of musicians.”Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs was one of the first major musicians to see the possibilities with Lewis. In 2016, the two performed a duet, you could say, of the gospel song “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” at a Harry Dean Stanton tribute concert. “I’ve always thought of the voice as a sort of instrument,” Karen O said. “Whistling is this other instrument — it’s human breath. I was never witness to someone who can whistle like Molly can. It’s really extraordinary.”No one around Lewis seems surprised at her ability to make whistling a career, but sometimes even she can’t quite believe it. “It’s been working for some crazy reason,” she said, still taking it all in. “I’m going to try to ride it. See how it goes.” More