Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks
Appreciating the whistling song, when you are unable to whistle yourself
Throughout my life there have been two everyday, ordinary things I’ve never been able to do that have given me endless hours of self-conscious fretting.
Snapping my fingers and whistling.
You were expecting something more traumatic?
SNAPPING
Snapping my fingers I could fake pretty easily, as it was rare that I would be required to perform solo snapping. Finger snapping was always something done in group setting — a spontaneous street performance of West Side Story for example. A concert or a dance party.
I could always mime the finger movements. I knew what my digits were supposed to do, they simply refused to emit a sound through said action. I figured my stubby sausages were too fat, too oily, too nervous to create a sharp snap. When I was a teenager, this felt like one more item to add to the list of things to feel inadequate about.
I was too short, too shy, had too many zits, lacked muscles. And I couldn’t snap to save my life.
When I was in 6th grade, I admitted my finger-snapping disability to Carrie Hamburg, my next door neighbor who was in the 8th grade. She was my closest connection to feeling slightly cool. She looked like Farrah Fawcett’s younger sister and never treated me like the geeky middle-schooler that I assumed was how all the other kids saw me.
Her family had moved into the neighborhood when I was in 3rd grade. As soon as she saw our swimming pool, she was over at our house nearly every day that summer. I couldn’t believe how bold and confident Carrie was, how she just came over whenever she wanted. There was no asking her mom — or even my mom — if it was okay. If she wanted to do something she simply did it. I’d never met another kid as fearless and assured as Carrie. She even invited her girlfriends to come swimming at our house, a trend that continued every summer.
Of course I had a crush on her, but Carrie was way out of my league. All girls were out of my league, but Carrie seemed way older than her age, more like a high schooler.
“What do you mean you can’t snap?”
Carrie’s shocked expression surprised me. It was as if I had told her I couldn’t clap my hands. I may have had stubby sausage fingers, but I was an excellent clapper. I could exude deep, resonant claps. My palms were made for clapping.
“I just can’t snap!” I snapped, pouting. That type of snapping I could do. “I don’t know how else to put it.”
“All you do is….” And then Carrie snapped her fingers, her thumbs and middle fingers sliding off one another in one swift motion, then the thumb and pointer finger landing together in a gentle embrace. “Here, give me your hand.”
Carrie reached over and grabbed the fingers of my right hand and formed them into the shape she thought would be a fool-proof snapping position. As if my fingers weren’t sweaty enough, having young Farrah touching them sent them into moisture overdrive.
I prayed that my fingers would finally obey and make that sweet, sharp, magical snap. Even if just this once. But alas, nothing. Carrie tried again with my left hand and even dried off my sweat with a towel. Still, wet or dry, my fingers refused to sing.
Another reason I regret not being able to snap is that it’s a useful way to get someone’s attention. Instead of calling out, “listen up!” you could snap your fingers and if done right, get the response desired.
Super skilled snappers can send a sharp finger signal to their intended recipient and have it cut through the roar of a crowd. It’s a useful alternative to yelling.
So is whistling. Whistling is like snapping on steroids.
WHISTLING
I get the need to whistle when you desperately need to grab someone’s attention. But for the most part, this type of whistling, the non-musical form, is simply annoying bordering on oppressive.
Have you ever been at a concert or a sporting event and someone (usually some drunk guy with a non-ironic mullet) won’t stop blasting out deafening whistles, at a pitch that could shatter glass? The sort of person who seems to believe that all the other patrons came to the game-show-venue just to listen to his 5-octave whistling skills? This type of douchebag jackass couldn’t care less that his eardrum piercing whistles have obliterated (hopefully temporarily) your hearing’s upper register. It’s this sort of sonic violence that can lead a peace-loving lefty to question their opposition to open-carry laws.
Thankfully the majority of whistling is pleasant to listen to and provides an aural signal that a person in a good mood is nearby.
Whistle while you work.
Yeah, never been able to do that. Whistling that is, and if you ask a few of my old bosses, the working part too.
I’ve tried. I’ve puckered my lips in a hundred different ways. Like Carrie Hamburg, I’ve had other well-meaning friends and girlfriends try and teach me how to whistle. The best I could do was add a little tonality to my heavy breathing. Perhaps my sausage-lips were too fat and chapped.
I always wanted to be able to whistle, to carry a tune in whistle form (carrying it in voice will have to come in my next life), as it seemed like those who did whistle tended to be happier, tended to be better equipped at entertaining themselves.
But unlike snapping, it was clear that a fair percentage of the population couldn’t whistle. (According to Alexa, although there have been no scientific studies, the best guess is 67 percent of the population can whistle.)
So I wasn’t alone in my whistling ineptitude. My shame was far less embedded. I’ve evolved from seeing whistling as an expected ability to more like a nice-to-have.
I’ve come to view whistling from the proper perspective of an appreciator. Similar to how I can appreciate the guitar and the piano even though I can’t play either instrument.
YOUNG FOLKS
I was reminded of this appreciation the other day when my latest earworm, Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks” appeared.
Appeared from where, I am unsure. Maybe I walked past a stranger that was whistling and it triggered the song. Maybe it played unobtrusively from a car driving past. However it came to be, my first reaction was joy.
I’ve always loved this song.
It’s imminently catchy, features not just whistling, but bongos and maracas. And it includes the classic male-female lyrical trade-off, immortalized by Sonny and Cher. (I know, as well as a thousand other duets before them.)
Guest vocalist, Victoria Bergsman (also known from her indie pop band The Concretes) joins Peter in lead vocal duties. Their voices blend perfectly together, conveying the song’s meet-cute new love vibe with just the right touch of innocence and wariness.
The first verse, below, has Peter voicing his worry that Victoria, his new love-interest, would not want to be with him if she knew his past history. In the second verse, sung by Victoria, she tells him, in essence, let’s just see this night through and not try and make a bit to-do about it.
If I told you things I did before, told you how I used to be
Would you go along with someone like me?
If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history
Would you go along with someone like me?
I did before and had my share, it didn't lead nowhere
I would go along with someone like you
It doesn't matter what you did, who you were hanging with
We could stick around and see this night through
The message of the song, captured so wonderfully in the chorus, is: let’s just accept each other as we are now. Not who we used to be, not who we might become in the future.
And we don't care about the young folks
Talking 'bout the young style
And we don't care about the old folks
Talking 'bout the old style too
I’d been a big fan of Peter Bjorn and John since their self-titled debut album in 2002. It blows my mind that they’ve been around more than 20 years. That this song, and the album it is from, Writer’s Block—their third—is more than 15 years old. How can that be? I remember when “Young Folks” was omnipresent on alternative music radio and streaming sites. Wasn’t that only a few years ago?
I didn’t begrudge “my” band their international success. I was happy for my Swedish twee musician friends! (Tweedish musician friends?) Sure, I was a fan from the start, unlike the majority of folks (young folks, old folks) who jumped on the bandwagon only after hearing the addictive whistling melody of PB&J’s (the best band acronym ever) biggest song to date.
This is what allmusic.com has to say about PB&J’s early evolution:
The Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John derive their power from the combined forces of three talented songwriters -- guitarist Peter Morén, bassist/keyboardist Björn Yttling, and drummer John Eriksson -- who each sing and skillfully produce as well. The band draw inspiration from the sounds of classic '60s Baroque pop, power pop, and new wave, but come up with a unique style that was honed over years of recording and playing live. Their early work is exciting and punky, 2005's Falling Out is where their sound came together, and 2006's Writer's Block is where they hit the fringes of the mainstream propelled by the deathless indie pop anthem "Young Folks."
The music video for this song is wonderful. (And if you don’t normally click the links in my post, you owe it to yourself to do so this time.)
It starts off with animated Peter showing animated Victoria how to whistle as they sit on a park bench. She quickly picks it up and soon they are whistling together. Then a speech bubble appears above Peter’s head that says, “My place?” And instead of it being creepy, it’s comes off as sweet as when they get to his place, it’s not for sex, but to join the other guys in the band for a jam!
Yeah, probably not the best move on a first date, but Victoria’s invited to sing, so it’s okay that she has to deal with Bjorn and John now.
I watch this scene and it brings me back to that time when Carrie Hamburg tried to teach me to snap, and the times that other girls tried to teach me to whistle. Maybe I needed a genteel Swedish pop-singer to show me how it was done. But as that never happened, I will have to be content watching this video and listening to this song, air-whistling along to my heart’s content.
“Young Folks” was not the first song to feature whistling and it won’t be the last. I can certainly think of a few classic tunes with whistling as a main ingredient. But I want to hear from you!
What songs that feature whistling are your favorites? Post them in the comments below!
I got snapping down, both hands, but I've never been able to whistle; not blowing out, anyway. I could inhale and do it weakly (and sometimes weekly). Until I learned to play flute in high school, learning Ian Anderson licks off of Tull records! Perfecting his aggressive tonguing technique (and fluttering), my tongue got muscles it never knew it had!
For years now, I've been able to move my tongue forward to back against the roof of my mouth ( starting at the base of the teeth--it pushes air out which makes the sound) to make the bluebirds-type whistling heard in "Snow White"! I even managed to perfect doing it without anyone detecting I was doing it! Which, of course, led to me sitting in the back of high school Spanish class, pulling out my little magic bird, and the teacher would go, "Un pajaro? Donde esta un pajaro en la clase?" I don't think she ever found out who it was.
Cut to early part of this century, and while teaching elementary school, I'd close my fist, make the sound, and pretend I had a baby chick in there! Or, just do it out of nowhere, and enjoy watching them look around the room for one (ask me to show you in our vid chat)! Oh, the fun I'd have!😁
Share your pain Steve, can't snap my fingers or whistle (the mechanics of both seem utterly beyond me), but I've never felt I was missing out that much.
The only song I can think of that I might have whistled along to is ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay’ (the original obviously, but I'd also recommend trying to track down a jangly guitar - whistle free - version by a band called Thursdays which appeared on an early Fast Product sampler - think it's on YouTube)