Otis Redding Whistled Where the Last Words Should Go and Planned to Finish the Song Later. He Never Got the Chance

In June 1967, Otis Redding closed a Saturday night at the Monterey Pop Festival in California. The crowd had come for rock and roll. By the time he left the stage, they were his.

That August he was back in the Bay Area on tour, and fans kept crowding his San Francisco hotel. Concert promoter Bill Graham offered him somewhere quieter to stay: a houseboat in Sausalito, just across the water from the city.

Otis sat out on the dock, watching the boats come and go. Inside, he played the Beatles’ new album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” over and over. He wanted to try something new.

So he began writing a few simple lines about sitting in the morning sun and still sitting there when the evening comes.

Later that year he had surgery on his throat and was told not to sing, or even talk, for weeks. He kept writing anyway.

In Memphis, at Stax Records, he took the idea to his friend, guitarist Steve Cropper. “That’s about all he had,” Cropper later told NPR: watching the ships come in and roll away again. Together they finished it. “I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay” was Otis singing about his own life.

Not everyone loved it. Some at the label thought it sounded too soft and too pop, nothing like his usual fiery soul. Otis told his wife, Zelma, that he wanted to change his style.

At the end of the song, Cropper left room for Otis to ad-lib. Otis couldn’t think of anything, so he whistled. The idea was to come back and finish it properly.

He never got the chance. He worked on the song in the studio for the last time on December 7, 1967. Three days later, on December 10, his small plane went down in Lake Monona, near Madison, Wisconsin. Otis was 26. Four young members of his band, the Bar-Kays, died with him. Only trumpet player Ben Cauley survived.

Back in Memphis, Cropper finished the mix and added the sounds Otis had asked for: seagulls, and waves rolling onto the shore, like the ones he had heard from that houseboat.

Released in January 1968, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” became the first song ever to reach No. 1 in America after the singer had died. It sold millions of copies and won two Grammy Awards.

And the whistle that was only meant to be temporary became one of the best-known endings in music. This official video sets the song to rare photos and film of Otis. Listen all the way to the end, and you’ll hear the waves.