Songfacts®:

• In the 1944 movie To Have and Have Not, Lauren Bacall tells Humphrey Bogart, "You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow." In this song, Flo Rida gives similar instructions, asking, "Can you blow my whistle baby... You just put your lips together and you come real close."
• This is the third single from Flo Rida's album Wild Ones. DJ Frank E, who has previously worked with the likes of Madonna, Kanye West and Chris Brown, provided the beat. The Colorado producer previously collaborated with Flo Rida on his singles "Right Round" and "Turn Around (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)."
• The whistle Flo Rida croons of on this song is not of a sporting kind. "It's definitely for referees," he joked to MTV News. "Well, put your own swing on it, but for the most part I keep it clean, but if you listen to it, you can take it another way as well," he went on to admit of the sexually suggestive song.
• This is not the first Flo Rida track to contain dual meanings - his 2009 hit single "Right Round" was one big double entendre. He told MTV News that his crew help prevent him from crossing the line into downright dirty territory. "I'm not the only one in the studio a lot of times," he said, "so I have my boys in there and they'll tell me and give me their suggestions and what they think. If it's too much I'll go back."
• The song was Flo Rida's third US #1, following 2008's 10-week leader "Low" and 2009's six-week chart-topper "Right Round."
• Six different writers are credited on this track, including Flo Rida and DJ Frank E. The others are David Glass, Breyan Isaac, Antonio Mobley and Marcus Killian. According to Isaac, it was Glass who came up with the whistling hook. "He also had this cool beat," Isaac told Songwriter Universe. "I came in the room, just as they were playing the beginning of the idea to Flo, and the magic just happened so quickly on that song. It came together in one session, and within a day or two, the majority of the song was done."
• In 2012, YouTuber Joel Merry posted a cover of "Whistle" that in 2014 was used in a fan-made tribute video to the actor Josh Hutcherson, who played Peeta in the first four Hunger Games movies (in the films, the characters sometimes whistle to signal each other). The tribute video got some attention but really took off in 2023 when a new Hunger Games movie, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, was released. TikTokers, amused by the retro charm of the video, revived it in a big way, incorporating it into their own videos with blasts of irony.