Songs that make me cry, #6: “Anyone Can Whistle”

Anyone can whistle,

That’s what they say — easy!

Anyone can whistle

Any old day — easy!

It’s all so simple:

Relax, let go, let fly!

So someone tell me

Why can’t I?

A basic truth about art is that it ultimately lives in the minds of the audience, whose take-aways may or may not reflect the artists’ original intentions.

As a songwriter, I chafe at this truth. I’d prefer that listeners pay close attention to my lyrics and think hard about what I might have meant by them. As a music consumer, though, I’m just like everyone else; my listening experience is rooted more in my own life than in the lives of the song’s creators.

A good example of this is Stephen Sondheim’s song “Anyone Can Whistle.”

While it was written for a 1964 Broadway musical of the same name, I first heard it as an a cappella piece by the Yale Whiffenpoofs in the mid-1990s. It was given to me by a Williams College friend who knew I loved a cappella songs and who presented this one as a sort of commentary on the liberal arts education we (and Sondheim himself) had gotten at Williams: “I can dance the tango, I can read Greek — easy….” In this context, with a sensitive lead vocal from a male undergrad, the outline of the song sharpens into poignance. The singer seems to be an overachiever like me, someone who has elite credentials but who also struggles with mundane tasks. Someone who’s embarrassed, even humiliated, that he needs help as a child might. Someone who knows that the only way forward, difficult but obvious, is to admit his limitations, lean on his loved ones, and get the help he needs.

Maybe you could show me

How to let go,

Lower my guard,

Learn to be free —

Maybe if you whistle,

Whistle for me.

Thanks to Sondheim for a great song, to the Whiffenpoofs for a great performance, and to my friend Tanya for a great choice — not the version that Sondheim had originally intended, but a version that speaks to me.