Charlie Barnet’s Skyliner was the identifying signifier of non-conforming, anti-Communist, pro-American youth.

  This was not in the least a mass movement at all. Someone who was with it on this topic was rare.

  If for example one were to whistle the first few bars of this piece, then sometimes somebody would respond in kind with measures as if continuing the melody.

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  Contacts were made this way.

  Before Skyliner, this kind of signifying code had been for some time the beautiful and easy melody of Gershwin’s the man I love, which was ruthlessly co-opted by the gays for themselves.

  To the point of boredom, at every time of day or night the melody was whistled near every open public toilet in this large beautiful town, especially near the government buildings.

  Jazz standards, particularly from the swing epoch, were asy to pick up.

  Skyliner was monstrously difficult.