Found this from years ago (August 2018) in my ‘Drafts’. I used to like this amongst my blogs. Don’t know why I took it out. So I’m going to re-‘Publish’. It has the goldfish ‘Whistling Song for the Day’ on it as a link. This whistling tune came straight off the top of my head. When I write songs a conundrum sometimes exists. Is it my unique string of notes in la la la land. Or has another’s song been naughty and snuck into by brain’s neutrons. I’m pretty certain this Goldfish ditty is a Summers mad moment. Ha!

I remember watching ‘The Good Life’ and was fascinated by Tom’s chirpy little whistle. Every time I’d finished watching an episode, I never hummed that catchy theme tune at the start afterwards. I’d always whistle that little trill. Even though he may not have whistled it in a ‘just watched’ episode. Years and years later, I came across a Richard Briers interview. He divulged that the tune was from the song Somewhere over the Rainbow. I was gobsmacked. How come I never realised? The bit that goes:

’If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, Why oh why can’t I?’

Why hadn’t I realised? He whistles half of it. Omits the ending. Which would have made the penny drop. Strange. It’s an incomplete tune for what he dreams and hopes will become a complete lifestyle. Does he have reservations, nerves, it may collapse, fail. Doubts? Worriesome thoughts that they may not ultimately succeed. So he stops half way through unintentionally without realising why. Why that tune? It was certainly linked to his lifestyle choices I’d like to believe. It was his choice for inclusion in the sitcom. Not John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, the writers. An inner psychological inclusion, brought out in melody/lyric form, of his wishes to escape the normality and everyday trudge of life. I’d whistle that little ditty all day long.

I often whistle a song which pops into my head, from out of nowhere, during the day and suddenly realise it’s linked to my situation at the time. A scenario that has just happened or thoughts to what may be experienced later. Usually the sentiment comes from one line of lyric. Not the overall meaning of the song. A line of tune that stabs at that moment in time. If I’m experiencing abdominal discomfort from surgery I once had? Nilsson’s ‘Coconut’ song pops into my head. Every time. A couple of days ago I kept humming, whistling and singing  ‘Follow the Sun’ by the Beatles after a hard day at work? ‘One day, you’ll look, to see I’ve gone, for tomorrow may rain so….I’ll follow the sun’. Escaping the job.

I don’t go around whistling outright. Loud, get on your nerves whistling. Usually alone in a task and not a true whistle. Why? Because I can’t whistle anymore. I’ve lost the capability. Gone forever. Wind with slight gentle rasp whistle inclusion is my extent nowadays. No loud volume. Just hushed and self healing noise for the mind.

Today? This is my whistling song for the day. I thought of Slim Whitman through a process of thoughts that began with an alien film we watched last night on Netflix. Well ‘Extinction’ wasn’t an alien film, but it made you think it was at the start. SPOILER. It was humans dressed like aliens. Then the Tim Burton film ‘Mars Attacks’ came into my head. And what kills the Tim Burton comic yet hostile aliens? Slim Whitman’s music. I was very offended! Slim Whitman is one of a few singers that can make me cry. You’d think a voice as pure as his would be clinically and emotionally sterile. No way. Emotion in the voice is portrayed in many ways.

Lyrical content can hit a spot inside your mind that blows you away. I remember sitting in my car, tears rolling down my cheeks when I heard a Morrissey song. ‘Please, please, please, let me get what I want’ and it caught me at a low ebb.

‘See the life I’ve had…..can make a good man….bad’. THAT line.

Oh! Sorry got diverted. Back again to today? ‘Rose Marie’, is a beautiful song. Just a heartfelt love story of one’s feelings of another. I was fascinated by the Andy Kaufman rendition. The presented imagery and initial laughter. Then the song begins and blows the whole comic experience apart. Suddenly, the song becomes everything. No more laughter. Just the song and it’s sentiment. Andy Kaufman genius. Read into this little story what you will. He’s done this for a reason. And you can enquire into your own analysis. If you are ever on YouTube it is worth hunting down his Rose Marie version. I can’t link it. It won’t let you.

Back to ‘Whistling’. So…….I sat there one morning with my brothers old guitar from the 1980s. A cheap little affair with his original strings on it. And sat looking at the childrens’ goldfish. I thought of them whistling their own song for the day. The Goldfish. Not the children. I quickly wrote and whistled this little tune. I’d forgotten all about it. Made me Ha! laugh at the timing when the fish at the end kisses stone.