A few days ago my radio played “Ain’t Nobody’s Business But My Own” by Billie Holiday. I carefully listened to the lyrics and was shocked by those at the end in which the woman sings that it ain’t nobody’s business if her man beats her. Initially I was shocked but a few days later I began to think about the harsh imprisonment of black males which was once used as a means of placing them in prison where they could be leased out as cheap labor basically providing an extension of forced labor after slavery no longer provided that benefit. It is hard to take lyrics, literature and poetry out of their era and read into them meanings which they now have in our era.
67
If you don't like the song, don't listen to it. Easy peasy.
124
In 1974, my junior year in high school,"That's Entertainment" was one of the must-see films. Fellow students and I were so enamored with the film that we chose to produce out own musical called "All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing." Musical numbers and dramatic scenes were carefully woven together and hosted by an emcee. The opening number was "We're in the Money" (uh-oh! Golddiggers!). "Mein Herr"from Cabaret (the school board gave us an ultimatum - dancers could be seen only from the front - no gyrating rear ends and spread legs, or the song would be cut from the program. It was 1974, after all). And which song was a big hit? "Baby, It's Cold Outside," performed by our English teacher Mr. Murillo and his then-wife, Susie.
My, how times have changed.
31
Whereas it is absolutely true that men have had undue influence and power over women for sexual favors since the Beginning of Time it seems to me we should just forward more mindfully. Anybody listen to Billy Preston's and Bruce Fisher's You Are So Beautiful lately? Try the Joe Cocker recording.
5
I have to wonder. I met an interesting woman in college, she told everyone she met for 6 and a half years years that she would never ever date me, not withstanding regular overtures one my part. Then there was the day she changed her mind.
We have now been happily married for 30 years.
I guess by today's standards after the the first no I should have just tucked tail and slinked away.
92
Has anyone listened to the lyrics to "Funky Cold Medina" lately? Cut Loesser some slack.
43
Someone should write a clever companion piece: "Baby, I missed my time, please, baby get back to me. Why don't you answer me...
6
Most everyone is missing one important fact: this is a duet! A duet sung in harmony. This tells us that the songwriters intended this as a love song sung by two people already madly in love; lovers who are co-conspiring to find a way to justify spending the night together, each locked within the parameters of his or her own social role. She's as hungry for sex as he is. He's as in love as she is. He is speaking for sex, she is giving a voice to the pious and together they override them all for their own pleasure. Victory for love!
152
Oh for goodness sake! Please don't ignore the context of this song! It is a seduction, and a sexy one! Women are more free to choose their partners these days. They weren't back then and the consequences of sex out of marriage were more grave. It seems pretty obvious to me that the woman in the song would like to stay for the whole night! Also, did date-rape drugs exist then? I don't want to infantalize women in any situation. But that is what seems to be happening. I've always thought of this song as more subversive. The woman in the song is considering about her own pleasure and whether or not the risk is worth it. Since women are much more free to choose sexual partners now, this controversy seems crazy to me.
123
In a more perfect world Lydia Liza would be sued for copyright infringement and artistic plagiarism. If she doesn't like that song she can writer her own. She's unAmerican and a thief without the talent to write her own music. Where is diversity when people and music are censored and silenced?
33
Inflexibility and mob mentality are the hallmarks of political correctness. News flash - politics is about debate, not correctness. Correctness, that's dogma's territory.
46
Correcting some illiterate typos: I commented early this afternoon and now I've watched the guitar-and-vocal modern remake. It may be fine as a pamphlet, but it doesn't qualify as a song; no self-respecting lyricist would write a line like "I reserve the right." A lawyer maybe, but not a lyricist. I hope Loesser doesn't get the Times in the afterlife. But as long as we're distorting and over-thinking great songs, is it time to ban Sweeney Todd? After all, it portrays a barber with anger issues and a maternal figure who plots to slice up the boy who adores her.
19
Could this article be any more sexist and Islamophobic?
What was the point of even mentioning Sayyid Qutb’s criticism of the song? To associate those of us who are triggered and enraged by this song with Islamist radicals?
What next? Just because I recently helped smash a monument to racism - a Confederate memorial - does that mean I’m somehow on the same level as Islamist radicals who have destroyed colonial and pre-Islamic monuments in their countries?
And so what if Sayyid Qutb was critical of this song? Did he not have a point? We in the West do have a rape culture. We do mistreat women more than any other part of the world. And so what if many of us on the woke left do happen to agree with intellectuals like Sayyid Qutb and those who continue to fight for freedom across the Middle East? Whether it’s Marc Lamont Hill or Linda Sarsour or Louis Farrakhan, they often make good points despite the conspiracy to silence them.
In short, this song should be banned, and people who listen to it should be punished. In fact, the whole celebration of Christmas makes me sick. But that doesn’t mean I condone shooting up Christmas parties and markets. It just means I want these things banned.
Like many on the woke left, I am very tolerant. But being tolerant and open minded has its limits! Tolerating sexism and evil - even in the form of Christmas songs - isn’t acceptable!
8
Let’s be honest, folks: Men have the power to control women’s minds. When will we talk openly about the superpowers that are unfortunately possessed by one sex?
7
I love this song. It's sexy, playful and funny. The woman is flirting; the song is about mutual seduction.
I'm a feminist, marched down Fifth Avenue as a teenager in the first 1970s woman's march, and am a #metoo. That is why I hope I have the credibility to say "this so-called controversy takes the ridiculous to the absurd."
After reading the NYT article --when my husband told me about this dispute, I didn't believe him, so he texted the link -- I downloaded two versions of "Baby It's Cold Outside," one by Idina Menzel and Michael Buble and the other by James Taylor and the late, great, Natalie Cole.
I'm listening to the Taylor/Cole now. I will sing "Baby, It's Cold Outside," albeit badly, on Christmas Eve.
65
There's an amusing version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by the Holderness Family that emphasizes the defensiveness and fear many men are feeling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJB9GP5gyAw). For 74 years the song has been seen as a playful take on courtship in which men want sex and women, who may or may not want it, are afraid of puritanical condemnation for their desires. Now an angry MeToo Movement is focusing on the potential for date rape, which of course is there, and some folks want to censor the song, which of course is an overreaction. Romance and sex are both risky. They always have been and always will be, but it doesn't stop us from dating and mating. We should keep the period the song was written in mind and maintain a sense of humor. And if old-fashioned guys or gals enjoy listening to this song or "Santa Baby" or "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," let them!
30
Surprised to see Sayyid Qutb mentioned in this controversy, as he developed the concept that adherence to a comprehensive Islam, including Sharia law was a protection against autocracy as the following two paragrahs.
" Muslims should resist any system where men are in "servitude to other men" – i.e. obey other men – as un-Islamic and a violation of God's sovereignty (Hakamiyya) over all of creation.
A truly Islamic polity would have no rulers – not even theocratic ones – since Muslims would need neither judges nor police to obey divine law"
Sharia isn't the most protective of women's autonomy, as even the bonds of marriage can be communally weakened by three additional wives; or negated by divorce being as simple as proclaiming "I divorce you" (but in fairness it must be stated three times)
If the author would give the location of his condemnation of this song, it would be a useful addition to the Wikipedia article about him. I'll keep an eye out for it, and will take care of the insertion.
2
No matter how well-meaning, those who only see the woman as a victim in this song is are doing no favors for women or feminism. Not all women are victims of men. If anything the woman in this song is more a "victim" of social norms that insist she deny her sexual desires... Presuming of course that she's allowed to admit she even has any.
The song is clearly COMEDIC and the SHARED JOKE is that both the man and the woman want to spend the night–(they've clearly had a little fun already since she asks him to "lend me a comb"), and they're trying to craft a viable excuse.
#metoo is important, clearly. But there's no reason why holding men accountable means we also have to throw out subtlety, cultural contexts, flirtation and, most important of all, Humor.
It's a DUET. They are singing two different melodies that COME TOGETHER and HARMONIZE.
79
Is it ok to still soft shoe tap dance to this song?
17
I know literally know one personally - even among my very progressive, #MeToo sympathetic friends - who is offended by this.
But I know a whole bunch of conservatives from my rural, Midwestern hometown who are furiously offended by the imaginary offense of "liberals".
These kind of fake "liberals are offended" controversies, where a single de-contextualized occurrence, usually from the leftish fringe, is blown up out of proportion for maximum conservative rage, is tearing us apart over entirely trivial things.
People care more about stupid things like this than they do real issues because these fake controversies go right to the amygdala, inflaming easy rage, playing on simplistic stereotypes and knee-jerk "us vs. them" primal fears of cultural warfare.
41
It’s not cold outside anymore. Baby we’re burning books to warm it up. Honestly, can’t we just decide for ourselves without censors?
30
I believe in earlier, less "woke" days this sort of female ritual standoffishness was called "playing hard to get".
25
Bah! Humbug!
Newly edited music for snowflakes.
26
Question, I don't recall anyone complainng about the context of this song last year, or the year before, or the year before that. Why now? This song is not about a woman being a victim of date rape, but a woman who is well aware of the consequences if she spends the night with her boyfriend. He wants her to stay and she wants to stay, but she knows she shouldn't. It's tongue and cheek, with a sprinkle of innuendo. A modern example of this song is Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On". It's the same premise, boy wants girl to "get it on". There is no difference. But I guess the MeeToo movement wants to demonize any song which has a hint of sexual inneudo. It's a shame.
26
The "Me Too" crowd has to take steps to keep from being too puritanical or it will fizzle out. "Second wave" feminism fizzled out when the "sex is rape"and anti-pornography crowd infected it, and it lost all it's appeal.
15
I've always considered "Baby" to be a playful flirtation between a man and a woman. There is a clear difference between a man who is flirting and a man who only wants to take advantage but that distinction is lost now that everything is so heavy between the sexes. In this era of MeToo, hookups and being "flown out," everyone wants to get right to it or not do it at all.
16
How about --
"Come and cuddle by the fire in the evening,
We'll forget about the snow and rain.
While the skies are stormy,
Your arms will warm me,
It's winter again.
It's so thrilling when it's chilling in the winter,
and the frost is on the window pane.
Hear the sleigh bells ringing,
My heart is singing,
It's winter again.
The wind, may blow,
Who cares - just let it blow.
I'll write, to you,
Love letters in the snow.
Then we'll cuddle by the fire in the evening,
We'll forget about the snow and rain.
While the skies are stormy,
Your arms will warm me,
It's winter again."
Hal Kemp and his orchestra, with Skinnay Ellis.
Watch the video and you'll get really nostalgic - guaranteed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nx_eyVIEpw
7
Perhaps we should just ban all popular music and go back to singing hymns.
34
Aren't most love songs just silly or about sex or both? Women or girls kissing up to men, men manipulating women? Why, even the idea of calling someone your girlfriend or boyfriend supports pederasty and underage sex, for the words girl and boy mean a person who is a minor and underage. I cringe every time I hear someone refer to their boyfriend or girlfriend, bejeez! Nowadays we know that we should not under estimate the power of language to determine what we think. Hate speech, Trump's Tweets change the economy! Gosh, what a laborious undertaking, but so worth it, to sanitize the language. Some will say, no, no, no, but clearly we have to, 'cause baby, it's cold, not to.
2
Rod McKuen “I’ve been attracted to men and I’ve been attracted to women.” and Dusty Springfield “I am just as easily swayed by a girl as by a boy” had it both ways when they did a lyric role reversal halfway through their tongue in cheek take on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. They both struggled with their their sexuality at a time when it was career ending to disclose one’s true inclinations. If they were still around, both would have found the recent uproar over the 1940’s lyrics hysterical.
6
We could go on forever analyzing things that at one time were socially acceptable, but under today’s lens would be totally unacceptable. I’m torn. We must be against oppression and exploitation, but sometimes you gotta give it a rest. I always say, could you imagine the uproar if The Rolling Stones put out Brown Sugar today?
13
Next on the chopping block: Blues in the Night
11
Sometimes a song is just a song. In this particular case it is a song about seduction. He is trying to seduce her to have sex. She is aware, she understands, she is deliberating, the alcohol is loosening her inhibitions as it did his. The lyrics are very clever.
On the other hand if you are a survivor of sexual assault, never took a course in human sexuality, never learned some basic self defense strategies, where never taught to recognize and defend against predatory behavior, I can see how this period song may act as a trigger.
Instead of channeling energy into having the song banned the song could instead illustrate the importance of teaching age appropriate sex education and human sexuality in the school system.
13
All day now I can't get this song out of my head, even in the shower. Nice song, but enough is enough already.
12
Regarding this controversy, I see it as the first woman beginning to exercise her own sexual freedom and making decisions different than what others might want her to do, and the second woman (the reversed role) being quite comfortable with that freedom. And of course there is pointed irony of how we view this when the roles are reserved.
7
thank you Bill Shatner! loved those clips from the old movie
11
What was in that drink she referred to? I always figured it was a bit more alcohol than she was accustomed to..... we'd often say that when we were young adults back in the 50s and 60s, suspecting a particularly strong drink.
19
I commented early this afternoon and now I've read the guitar-and-vocal modern remake. It may be fine as a pamphlet, but it doesn't qualify as a song; no self-respecting lyricist would write line like "I reserve the right." A lawyer maybe, but not a lyricist. I hope Loesser doesn't get the Times in the afterlife. But as long as we're distorting and over-thinking great songs, is it time to ban Sweeney Todd? After all, it portrays a barber with anger issues and a maternal figure who plots to slice up the boy who adores her.
8
Maybe because I’m a father of two (grown) daughters, I’ve long found “Baby” uncomfortable to listen to for years. And I love Liza’s and Lemmanski's new version.
After listening to all of the lyrics again, though, I think both people want to spend more time together, with a sly game where one is pleading and the other is teasing.
And more specifically, “I wish I knew how to break this spell” is a clear indication of where the one person's true heart lies.
If anything, what the man sings is irrelevant, it's a song about a woman making up her own mind and not giving in to what her parents or her neighbors might say. Or in the case of the Red Skelton version, about a man going through the same thought process.
22
Yes, we are all free to socially evolve and to perhaps interpret yesteryear's art differently... but we shouldn't be free to erase it.
32
Re-analyzing all things historical with the lens of current mores is a losing game. The only thing that can happen is everyone is mad at each other all the time.
Get over the past, let a nice song be a nice song, and work on continual improvement in the future.
36
Conservative outrage about Starbucks' holiday cups.
Liberal outrage about Baby, It's Cold Outside.
Can we declare a permanent ceasefire in the Holiday Crazy Wars?
53
@John
Not to mention going berserk if somebody wishes you a happy holiday season.
20
Great, funny song. Marvelous lyrics
The "controversy" is just ridiculous.
50
The world has gone to pot if Captain Kirk is now the calm voice of reason against a wave of hysteria. Hopefully this silliness doesn't become an annual debate.
25
Sorry everyone, but I oppose all censorship for any reason.
27
The song was written and sung in an era that didn't allow the possibility of a man and woman spending the night together unless they were married to each other. (Like the Legion of Decency code in movies.) That's why it sounds so stupid now. Especially if one or the other has to go out in a blizzard.
It has nothing to do with someone forcing someone to do something he or she doesn't want to do--something creepy. They couldn't spend the night together because that sort of thing couldn't be condoned in movie or song back then.
44
This is possibly the biggest stretch to get to political correctness as can be made. Soon it won't be permissible to say hello to a female person without offending them.
47
They had better not go after "You'd Better Go Now" !
So many great versions...
3
I can't believe what I've just read! People are having a fit about a cute song from the 40's about a flirting couple. I've always liked this song, and never once equated it with sexual abuse or misdeeds. Sure, she didn't know what her drink was made of, but only today's over-sensitive millennials would take this to mean that there was date rape drug in it. Yikes. The same people are probably enjoying rap music, whose lyrics are often portraying women as sexual objects, using horrible language. Give me a break.
62
Oh please.... America get a grip! We have lost both our minds and our ability to recognize context. Meanwhile, many of us gleefully sing along with "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" and watch Christmas slasher movies. The #MeToo movement is headed for a both a cliff and a harsh backlash that will do real victims great injustice.
41
How about this: MERRY CHRISTMAS!
20
@Max de Winter
It's still Advent.
Or at least it is for Christians who actually practice their faith, as opposed to conservatives who use "Christianity" as a cheap patina for their entirely secular culture war.
6
This song was never intended to express delight with forcing sex upon an unwilling participant. It's about two willing participants making fun of a puritan set of moral standards about sex at a time when those standards were being replaced by ones in which sex for fun was okay. Taking the meaning out of context allows reinterpretation of the song into a date rape anthem. But it is not and never was such a thing.
What we are seeing with respect to this song is reaction against the practices of sexual behaviors that reflect subservience of women due to traditional societies' expectations of them as mothers and wives and how this lead to their subservience to men. Sex is the means of their subjugation and so it is the enemy of women's freedom. The puritanical attitudes cropped up in the 1970's with the rise the of the feminist movement and now again with the #MeToo movement. Heterosexual oppression is a common theme which leads to this overreaction.
16
I just read the lyrics for the first time. I think the radio stations should do whatever makes them and enough of their listeners happy, but office social planners should tread more carefully. No one should be "volunteered" to karaoke sing this with a colleague. Even if there were no office Charlie Rose, it could create an inappropriate situation.
4
Hey, folks, I loved this song, too, and purchased the CD (remember those?) of Ray Charles and Betty Carter. But it is, indeed, time to retire the song, as it is extremely date rape-y.
I also grew up with Song of the South, racist Bugs Bunny cartoons, all the eighties movies like Screwballs and Porkies that reinforce and celebrate sexual assault behavior. I enjoyed them. But they are no longer appropriate as pop culture.
This is a pretty recent shift. I just saw Jurassic World for the first time the other day--I could not stomach Chris Pratt and Bryce Howard's first scene together. Pratt's dialogue is straight from a CBS executive's mouth. Watch it and see what I mean. And this was deemed acceptable in a major release just a few years ago.
6
@A And even now, The Big Bang Theory makes light of misconduct, to a point where I'd say it romanticizes sexual harassment and sexual assault. And lo and behold . . . I never knew the name of the CEO of the entertainment company for BBT until his name was in the news -- Les Moonves. This is everywhere—repugnant narratives overseen by repugnant people. (There were jokes that normalized stalking, and even one where the most socially awkward character asks if a woman if she was conscious when he or someone else "had sex with" her. It's supposed to be funny.)
4
Baby, there are cold people outside. I suppose the song is inconsistent with Me Too because men are supposed now to be timid in courtship.
5
As a comment on the idiotic objections to this sexy, funny song, I offer the following anecdote:
My mother met my father in 1946, at the Arcadia ballroom in Manhattan. She'd gone there with friends. He was alone.
My Dad was very handsome (as my mother was beautiful). He asked her to dance. (Subtext: she told me later that she'd been instantly smitten.) After the dance, he asked for her phone number. Feigning reluctance, she gave him the number, but warned, "Don't bother to call; I'm very busy."
Next weekend, BOTH of them returned to the Arcadia - looking for one another. Approaching my Mom, my Dad asked her to dance. She regarded him for a minute, then said haughtily (I can hear her now), "But you didn't call me!"
Bewildered, my Dad responded, "But you told me not to."
Married four months later, they remained married until his death after 44 years of marriage.
"Baby, it's cold outside."
49
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
19
It's a courtship dance! Maybe not an anthem for the 20teens, but then only a song from the 20teens could be that. Watch courtship dances between two birds---it's often come hither, go away, come hither, go away, to build the excitement.
I always liked the SNL version with the evolving reversal of roles between Jimmy Fallon and Cecily Strong, and tried to do a simplified reprise of it at my concert with a friend. It was fun, and it was funny.
I'd like to see the sober, somewhat hostile, self-possessed version that it seems some folks would prefer in order to make it up-to-date PC. Wow, that would be some performance.
But why go back to such an old classic--there are hundreds of more contemporary songs that don't fit the new mold and aren't half as well written. They are just waiting to be hacked apart, and their demise would hardly raise a whimper.
15
It's weird, I've always found "Baby It's Cold Outside" creepy and uncomfortable in a way I don't find (for instance) the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar," even though the lyrics of the latter are probably objectively far more disturbing.
I'll have to think about that.
4
"'Baby' is usually sung by a man insisting and a woman resisting, but not always. In “Neptune’s Daughter,” the romantic comedy that brought the song to the silver screen — it won an Academy Award for best song in 1950 — it was performed twice, and the gender roles were reversed the second time for comedic effect."
It's not that amusing in either rendition. I don't think that the song is about date rape, but in the movie, the person putting the moves on in each couple is a bit too aggressive for my taste. There's definitely a feeling of the other party being worn down. I can easily dispense with this song from my playlist.
To be even-handed, I've always been made uncomfortable by the musical On the Town's Come Up to My Place, in which a woman cabbie driving a young sailor won't take no for an answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ3wVJATKBY
6
There’s only a culture war around this topic between people who care, a number which is exceedingly small.
9
It's 4 o'clock somewhere, right? How about a cocktail and Christmas With Dino? As he sings to Martina McBride, "it's up to your knees out there."
3
Makes me so angry. A crescendo is not reached. A climax or plateau is reached. A crescendo is the reaching. Musicians know this.
7
Thanks, Trump.
In an era when women were feeling less abused by the social standards of the White House date rapist, the debate over this song might be a bit less intense.
But our time in history is what it is. If the days when a former frat president can walk for a violent rape are ever left behind us, I suspect that this song will then receive less criticism, given what it was in its time.
Unfortunately, its lyrics have vastly different meaning in ours.
7
@Bill, Presumably you're speaking of Bill Clinton
5
The song shouldn't be banned, but future recordings should probably use a modified lyric.
@Steven
Yes, Steven, and all B&W movies should be colorized.
12
I always found it full of the same passive aggressive social cues people were expected to "figure out". A lot of society was based on stuff like this. That is a kind of social engineering or grooming really. Very much like the current use of hypersexualization, and having no boundaries. Different tactics, same result, taking away the rights of others because they feel entitled to and have very emotional justifications for why its right.
No means no, what's the confusion about?
1
There’s no confusion that I’m aware of, just differing viewpoints, offered with sincerity. To dismiss that wonderful diversity of thought as ‘confusion’ reads like hubris, and ironically it asserts the very kind of interpersonal dominance you claim to oppose by sending the clear message, “I’m right, you’re wrong.”
Your words also imply a beautiful desire to elevate and preserve the dignity and integrity of the individual; if so, might you consider a different approach to voicing your beliefs?
3
I haven't liked this song for years because it is exactly as described in the article and the comments - the woman is being coy, saying no for social reasons even though she wants to say yes, wanting to be convinced to stay. It's that type of attitude that leads to mixed signals and blurring lines of consent. I know we have to listen to it through the lens of when it was written, but the fact that so many people say it's flirtatious even now make me think the times haven't changed very much.
8
As I type this comment, I am listening to "Baby, it's Cold Outside." It is a lovely rendition by Idina Menzel and Michael Buble. It is a playful version filled with joy and fun. This was played on the cable channel's Sounds of the Seasons: Holiday station. Not all stations are being politically correct thank goodness.
This is a lovely and sweet song that is filled with frolic and romance. There is too much sadness and despair today so this is a refreshing change. This should be played over and over and be enjoyed by all. For those who object, turn the dial. Do not deny those of us who love it the pleasure of listening to it.
24
This silly song isn’t a statue of a confederate officer, it’s a silly song from the 50s. Sure, there are some parts that could interpreted as rapey these days, but there are others you could also interpret as feminist, or at least demonstrating female agency. It depends on the interpretation of both artist and listener. That’s why it shouldn’t be banned or censored. It’s ambiguous. Let the people decide. Banning art is an offense to liberal values, even offensive art.
16
@Theo Baker
Isn't it more than a silly song if it creates such controversy? If the purpose of art is to get people to think about other ways to look at something, hasn't it succeeded? George
Wow, I really don't care what one 24-year-old "singer-songwriter" thinks. This is much ado about nothing. The world has real problems but as usual, Americans focus on the minutiae. And by the way, I guess people like this millennial will have to erase a lot of existing art so as not to offend anyone! Good luck!
33
Enough of conservatives falsely claiming "War on Protest" complaints like this.
Conservative ideology, literally supporting the status quo, dislikes change because it's portrayed as losing power. That's "buffalo chips".
This and other anti-PC backlash seems part of conservatism's recent "reverse discrimination" nonsense. Conservatives claim liberalism persecutes them as if that was discrimination.
Alt-right craziness is a "blacklash", as comedian Trevor Noah and The Daily Show satirized, by white supremacists within the conservative movement who loathed having an African-American POTUS in 2009.
Unless the GOP takes a stand against the Alt-Right and extreme TeaPartiers in their midst, the Party of Reagan will morph into something Ronnie and moderate GOP voters can't fathom. Case in point being Trump embracing Putin/Russia and MAGA followers wearing shirts saying "I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat."
It may be time to reply with an age old expression oft repeated by Tea Party folks and that ilk - "America: Love it or LEAVE it".
Immigrating to Russia would be a rude awakening to alt-right, Tea Party and extremist Repubicans. But maybe they need to live there a while to learn what "freedom" and equal rights for all means?
2
Can we get rid of Do They Know It's Christmas, next? Not necessarily because its culturally insensitive, but because its terrible.
10
This song would be disturbing if the man's tone was coercive or the woman's tone was fearful or reluctant. But in the classic version, on both sides the tone is flirtatious. What I hear is a strong woman in control, taking charge of her body and sexuality, playfully flouting the strict norms of her day.
15
I just saw Dr. Doolittle with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn last night and was shocked how once it was okay for rich old men could just buy young girls off the street and take them home to play with. And let's not even think about Maurice Chevalier in Gigi and little girls. Me Too has it work cut out for it in the forest. Not a tree will be left standing.
12
@John Doe
You may find this hard to believe, but some of us were never comfortable with those pairings.
As a teenager in the 1970s, I had lengthy discussions with other people my age, girls and boys, about the creepy, pedophilic undertone of the Maurice Chevalier song, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." By the way, did you know that in the original novella, Gigi was 15 and Gaston was 60? The exploitation of girls and women has always been part of the story. Gigi happened to be one of the miraculously lucky ones. By the time it was staged in the late 1950s, that age difference was not acceptable to the public. You could romanticize high-end prostitution only so much.
In my 20s, I realized that Rex Harrison was way too old for Audrey Hepburn. Only his charm made him barely palatable. He continued to play the role until late in life and the older he got the creepier was the characterization.
6
@John Doe
Isn't that "My Fair Lady"?
11
The Culture Police must have a bit too much time on their hands. If people really feel offended by this song, they should then consider compiling a very long, long, list songs with much more explicit offensive, sexist, violent, misogonistic, _____ add your own adjective(s).
If the song makes you feel uncomfortable or offends you, just change the channel, skip the song on your favoriate music app, etc. Then go that research on some really horrible lyrics in various other musical genres.
If radios stations are not playing this tune because of push back from some people, that is a form of censorship in my view.
No censorship please. No infringement of our 1st amendment rights. No more big sister or big brother. We have enough of that already, and not just from our own political and social systems in the US but from other countries as well.
Free the people to continue to listen, or not listen to whatever songs they want. If we must give a weak nod to that ominniscient censorship goddess or god to appease the near hysterical comments of some about this song, then put those silly lyric warnings somewhere on this song!. Or, maybe there is a spoken word, "trigger warning" introduction to this song.
Where is Tipper Gore when we need her?
Fight the real offenders of women in the workplace or wherever else they are including some of our churches and religious institutions. Consider moving on from this little tune and focus our efforts where it really matters.
23
2018 version of the song:
"I really must go"
"Baby it's cold outside"
"The answer is no"
End of song. # 1 HIT !!!
3
@Joe Hee, Hee, love it!
If you use the tune but change the lyrics it is a new song. You might not like the old lyrics, cool, just don't pretend you made a change to the song by making your own up. You just like the tune, and want your words instead.
If you don't like the song, don't play it. stop blaming other people for the song's lyrics, stop blaming them for the tune, just stop listening to it. Make music tune to your own tone, don't complain their isn't anything for you to listen to though, you have lips, play the spoons and tap your toes, to something you like.
The past is never going to fit the mold of the present, it just won't do for the things you think it will, as it was a different set of norms and rules and thoughts. Learn that it has been changing longer than you've been around, and will keep changing when you are gone. and get on with your life.
9
Where is the outrage about Santa Baby, where a similarly sexy female voice anxiously awaits a old man coming down the chimney with a diamond ring, a convertible, checks, a duplex, etc. etc.... in exchange for what? Why is that still OK?
17
@Calzone
I hate Santa Baby and all the "sexy" American Christmas songs. I prefer traditional carols.
3
@Calzone Don't give them any ideas!
2
@Calzone Because of patriarchy and its normalization and promotion of *male*-pattern violence against *women*. One cannot just invert the roles and make an equivalence. (In fact, the roles do not invert because of sex roles.)
Plenty of people dislike both songs—SB is often brought up as a comparison. Whether it's "ok" or not is not discernible; one can redirect and displace to any number of examples—claiming that there is consensus that one thing is considered "ok" and another parallel example is not, when we cannot really know—to avoid considering the implications of BICO.
2
If you listen to this song and hear date rape or misogyny it means, simply, that you miss the point. No need to get all mixed up in perceived subtleties, gender messaging, power dynamics, cultural sensitivities, hegemony or historical context. So much overthinking, it must hurt.
16
This is ridiculous! Folks should be more concerned with Ed Sheerin's (sp?) song, "I'm in love with your body"! If they want to pull a song, maybe they should think about that one.
10
I’ll play along. In the context of its time: Sweet Susie stays the night with Suave Dave. The next morning, Dave isn’t quite as worried about the cold as he bundles Susie out the door. He’s in a hurry to tell Chuck and Dwayne about nailing Sue, and by noon she’s got a reputation. Dave doesn’t call. If Susie is lucky, the reputation is all she’s got.
I prefer the Everly Brothers version, where the guy is actually concerned about his date’s reputation, and frantically tries to wake up little Susie.
A lot of women over a long period of time were scarred by continual marginalizing; the song sends shockwaves through those women. Listen; respond, but respond to them as real people with passionate concerns.
This pendulum of social growth swings wide, it swings back; and it does that for a while until the norm is something we can all live with. Stop nit-picking and then nit-picking the nit-picking.
Watch Bill Moyers interview Joseph Campbell about the power of myth.
3
Ridiculous, completely ridiculous and over the top. It's hard to believe that anyone with any intelligence would take this seriously. Let's sterilize the world. The human race is problematic anyway.
12
It's heartening that we're beginning to pay more attention to the cultural artifacts that surround us. Some are cute, some are quaint, some are obnoxious, and some are soul-deadening and vicious.
"Baby, It's Cold" should probably be "located" among the first three, but it's not vicious.
DO examine the cultural artifacts of current film, most rap "music," and the never-ending stream of murder and mayhem in television fare: The rot and emptiness there doesn't prevent binge-watching and boffo box office sales.
In "Baby," the gentleman pleads, but does not insist, and certainly doesn't force. The lady resists, but does not yield. Based on Outcome, there's not a crime, a perp, or a victim--but in much of the rest of pop culture, there's plenty of all three. Lighten up on this, I'd say, and pay more attention to the real negatives that surround and desensitize us.
10
I, an adult male, sympathize 100% with the notion that women should be treated equal to men in whatever situations they perform equally.
In addition, their bodies should be 100% inviolate when explicit permission to touch them in ways that may be interpreted as being sexual is not given.
That being said, I think this song is an example of loss of perspective. The song is harmless fun.
12
Aaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeee! I knew this would happen and am just surprised that it took this long. Much as I bemoan my current age, I am so happy that I grew up in a time when men and women could have a really good, playful flirt. Leave the song alone and if you don't like it, change the channel.
22
Someone just needs to write a real life version, about having 30 million Christmas/work/family related tasks to get to, but choosing to snuggle up instead.
I really want to stay
But the cat needs food
But I think I have can of tuna
The cat'll get a nice little treat
Maybe just a minute more,
Because baby it's cold outside!
1
I suggest we form a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It should have its own Secretary and Police forces.
Then, we can all sleep well at night, knowing that Virtue Police is keeping us safe and virtuous.
16
@Angelica Consoli
Giuliani already did that back when he was mayor, create a Decency Commission. Seriously, he did. Among others like Curtis Silva, he appointed, according to an ABC News article, “his own divorce lawyer”.
2
I can see both sides:
Among others the line "What's in this drink?" is truly reprehensible by today's mores.
However, it's clear that as written, the song is meant to portray a playful and - most importantly - mutual flirtation.
So how about this compromise? Switch the roles and have the "Lamb"- "I really can't stay..." part sung by the guy and the "Wolf" part sung by the woman. I'd tune in for Diana Krall and John Legend or Beyonce and JayZ (can he sing?).
I understand that for those who hear the lyrics as inherently predatory, reversing the gender roles doesn't change anything. However, it does upends the power dynamic in that the woman is unlikely to be able to force the guy to stay. That's enough of a shift for me - and maybe others that are inclined to like the song but who do see the problem the situation presents - to embrace it again.
2
There are a lot of classics that worked in their day but not now. Joan Crawford being spanked by Clark Gable in 1934 would not be remade by any modern Hollywood actress today. Likewise, the lyrics of "Baby" need to be seen in today's world, when we're trying to teach our young men and women about consent. It's difficult to talk to my teen daughter about getting out of uncomfortable situations when that song is the background music of our discussion in the car. Every time the woman singer says "no," I cringe. With so many other holiday songs available, why do we need to cling to this one?
9
Given the fact that rap songs fill of "kill a cop" and women insulted and objectified with terms like "B..." and "H..." pass our contemporary grievance-seeking censors test for civility and micro aggressions, the only reason (excuse) for this latest "opportunity to have a conversation about gender" seems to be that probably a white, straight, Christian, not disabled, Anglo male wrote and or was singing the song's lyrics.
22
@winthrop staples
Actually, Frank Loesser was NOT a "white, straight, Christian" male. He was Jewish.
3
Every era should question whether or not the "classics" of the past reflect the mores of the present. Those often heard "classics" affect attitudes not only of those who read or listen closely but also of those who hear them casually in the background. The problem is all around - obvious in Taming of the Shrew but also in less obvious places like a "humorous" character is Dickens' Bleak House who is a serious (and likely dangerous) stalker. To me the song at issue sends a message that men are entitled to get their way with women regardless of the objections. The message is made worse by the fact that the song is played as an approved holiday song. I cannot see it any other way and I think it is wholly inconsistent with our current attempts to eradicate abuse.
9
Most surprising in this article to is that the song makes not mention of Christmas or any holiday. It's so strongly associated with Christmas I never realized that before.
4
It is a mistake to judge this song by today's polarized standards. The song concerns two people in a relationship during a period when a woman worried about being judged as having loose morals if she chose to stay overnight with her boyfriend. That's why the woman in the song keeps mentioning other people's opinions and concerns. How anyone can complain about this pleasant song in an era of ghastly, vulgar rap music and videos is beyond my comprehension.
39
I think people are going too far with their outrage over something written way before most of them were born. I listened to this song when I was a kid and have always liked it for the back and forth between the singers. In those days this is the way it was. No offense was meant or taken.
If you are offended by the song - Don't Listen To It!
Your offensive parameters are not everyone's offensive parameters. It's time people took responsibility for themselves and not try to dictate for everyone else.
20
What about “Jingle Bells”? Ever listen to that one? “Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleight...”
5
@Patrick
That would be a violation of safety regulations and if work related OSHA regulations.
15
@Patrick, My mom was accustomed to riding in one-horse open sleighs through the snowy fields of northern New York State (circa 1920s). When I asked her what it was like, she said, "Fun."
8
At 74, the song is clearly outdated and anachronistic; however, it does stand as an illustration of long-standing social acceptance of men pursuing women at any cost. In its original form, the performers were wolf (man) and mouse (woman), a relationship that runs counter to today's social mores. Before it made its way to film and widespread popularity, the song was performed by the author and his wife as a sign to party guests that it was time to leave. While the intent may not have been to promote seduction by any means, it does follow the stereotype of Lothario as hero. As such, it is easy to see why some people might find it offensive and not just badly out of touch with the times.
10
Shock, horror! Academy Award winning song incurs wrath of #metoo movement 73 years after it was written by Frank Loesser. "Baby It's Cold Outside" was originally performed as a "party piece" with his wife Lynn Garland before being featured in MGM's "Neptune's Daughter" (sung by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán). "Baby It's Cold Outside" won the Best Original Song at the 22nd Academy Awards in March 1950.
Next Christmas, they will be deriding Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby"
15
Leave it to Politically Correct Tofu Warriors to spoil anything and everything because they are offended. A simple solution is to not listen to the song if you don't like it. End of problem.
The only reason the PC crowd have picked on this song is because it's easy to understand the lyrics as they are being sung. The same can't be said for the majority of music genres.
22
People who don’t listen to the song still rub elbows with those who do. Influences one’s understanding of male-female relationships and how to behave in them.
I don’t agree with banning the song, though. Censorship is a bad tool to use in society.
1
Long time San Franciscan and proud Democrat, and shame to those reactionary stations taking P.C. to their most extreme. Some people gotta lighten up.
30
Oh wow...the hypocrisy is almost too much to bear...we truly have gone bonkers. We are banning music? Get on with it then, all the music with lyrics that insult anyone, any time, anywhere, must go! Rap no more about twerking baby moms, guns and murder; croon no more about 50 ways to love or leave your lover; Pete Seeger can no longer have his hammer; whatever happened to common sense in this country?
26
This is the REAL problem. We live in a 24/7 infotainment cycle. There is enormous pressure to create content. Time and time again I see articles like this one that are so ridiculous, so absurd; clearly they were written to fill in the gaps. God forgive we should have a moment of silence.
Sexual assault is real, date rape is real. It's horrific and I thank the Universe every day that I have never been a victim. That being said, I have always stood up for myself. I once had to punch a guy in the throat because he thought NO meant YES. Poor guy. Now he crosses the street when he sees me.
13
Congratulations for being assertive. I wish all women were.
1
The article mentions the movie Neptune's Daughter where the song was included.
The movie STARS Esther Williams and Red Skelton.
co-starring Betty Garrett and Richardo Montalban.
Baby its cold outside is sung in a story that takes place in the summer in Hollywood—complete with Esther Williams in a swimsuit.
The "reluctant" Esther lives with older sister Betty who has the hots for Red Skelton (where they reverse the parts of the song). No mama and daddy or maiden aunt waiting up.
Its a flirtation.
9
I'm no moralizing prude, but as a big box employee who has endured having to hear most versions of this song many times, trust me, it's creepier every time. Put that in the dustbin with "Hurry Down the Chimney", "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" -- especially by adults lisping like a child, and "Is that you Santa Claus?" by Satchmo as menacing lighthearted songs going places no one should go.
11
Really this is a thing? That deserves coverage in the New York Times? Some people have WAY too much time on their hands.
Just because a cad like Bing Crosby sang it doesn't mean it is imbued with his ghost and that every time it is sung, someone is sure to be assaulted. Real people get assaulted and we should be concerned about them. This is not anthem of assault. It is a harmless song.
21
My wife and I once observed a male pidgin relentlessly pursuing a female, her keeping just ahead of him. When she crossed beneath a chain link fence, which was difficult for him to get under on account of his larger size, she waited in place until he finally got through, whereupon the pursuit resumed.
20
Every year millions of people sing Happy Birthday To You. Nobody thought it was sexy until Marilyn Monroe sang it in public to Jack Kennedy. Same words totally different vibe. You can’t judge the intent of a song by reading the lyrics. You can’t even judge the intent of a simple word like “hello” with no inflection or context to guide you. Is it a cheery greeting? Is it sarcasm? Is it creepy? It can be any of those things. Listen to the early performances of Baby It’s Cold Outside typically sung by two people well past their college dating years. Give each his or her due credit. They both know what they’re doing and saying. The song cleverly charts a romantic, grownup negotiation.
15
@Richard Frank
Yes indeed and the Ray Charles/Betty Carter version (two talented individuals way past college dating years) is the definitive version -- just magnificently displayed adult innuendo...
3
My now long dead parents used to sing this song in the1950s as my brother, sister and I anxiously awaited Christmas. I find it impossible to hear it as a date rape song. We are all the product of our experiences.
14
It's just too silly and unimportant. To place humorless, nuance-free 2018 goggles from a talentless slice of ideologues on a song from 1944 that was a daring celebration of a single woman's decision to ignore her censorious neighbors and disapproving relatives? Well, it cheapens a valid movement and gives refuge to reactionaries who can rightly point to recency-bias thought police to justify REAL obscenities like our Predator-in-chief, who I GUARANTEE would not enjoy the Ray and Betty version of this song, for obvious reasons.
But we can, in this case with the terribly oppressed and frightened Dionne Warwick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY2FBYOiFeg
10
The best version is done by James Taylor and Natalie Cole. Best advice to those who don't like it... don't listen to it.
As an atheist I am offended by "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and all other Xmas songs which speak directly about or imply there is a god. They offend me, so NO ONE ELSE should be able to hear them . Please remove them all from your Xmas playlist !
14
I think it’s ridiculous to ban the song - criticize it, point out the possible implications, Express disdain and even disgust, sure. Pull it? I wouldn’t.
But falling on your sword to protect it? That is even sillier.
6
I watched the video Shatner recommended, and noted carefully the words and actions. I was surprised-- it
DID make me feel uncomfortable -- not only was the lady saying no and being ignored, but he was pulling her coat off of her after she tries to put it on and leave, and he was grabbing her and stopping her from physically getting away. All those actions, plus the words, would rightfully alarm people TODAY who have learned to be more sensitive to male obtuseness in the date rape context.
But it IS an old film, and the actors at the time clearly intended to portray that they both were willing, and that the lady just didn't want to seem "easy" in the definition of the times, that it was a form of flirting. Fun to see an old fashioned example of flirting. (Except perhaps for the line, "what's in this drink?")
So it seems it's just another good lesson that context matters, and being sensitive to what your date really wants or doesn't want is always important.
Nowadays they'd have to write the song differently, because any guy who heard a gal say 'No' that much would have to say, 'ok sorry forget it'... and then she'd have to turn around and begin trying to convince him.
5
I guess everyone so incensed by this song haven't turned on a radio in the last 20 years. Please. If this song is your big concern you have way too little to really think about.
15
William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity should be required reading for all college students, especially English majors. That might help.
2
With regard to the "date rape" innuendo in the line about "was it something in my drink" , I remember that in the 1950's this expression was used to excuse oneself after the fact from some inappropriate behavior that went on. There was also the expression "slipping a Mickey" to someone, which meant giving somebody a Mickey Finn - a drink into which chloral-hydrate (old-fashioned knockout drops) had been surreptitiously put. This would render the victim stuporous or even unconscious - the object being not rape but robbery or other nefarious acts.
3
Totally outrageous to pull this song. Equally outrageous is how one can hardly wish others Merry Christmas anymore. "Holiday" employee parties have replaced traditional Christmas parties, and I have yet to hear Christmas carols on the radio, and it's December 14th. 'Hiding' Christmas won't make it go away, nor give strength to other faiths. We're on the road to global banality.
This is a charming and 'consensual' song that has been sung by numerous artists since it's composition. Take your mind out of the gutter.
7
@Linda
Not that old strawman. Merry Christmas isn't banned, and is used by anyone who wants to. Companies and stores often choose to make it "Happy Holidays" to include those who do and don't celebrate Christmas - but no one forces that. There's no one stopping you from wishing others Merry Christmas.
And this song likewise - when pulled from a radio station in San Francisco, the no doubt predominantly liberal listeners of the station called and got it put back on the list.
5
I still haven't come across anyone who is personally offended by this song. I think the protest is overblown.
12
I must have missed the announcement that we'd solved all of our real problems! Congrats to us!!
30
It’s interesting to see and hear, in those two clips, three different ways of staging the song. I don’t see how the lyrics are inherently objectionable. I do see how there’s an element of coercion in the firmness with which Ricardo Montalban grasps the woman’s arm that’s missing when the woman is pursuing Red Skelton and in the audio clip where both are singing sweetly and seductively.
Of course, you could believably stage it so that the woman is being coercive by changing the lyrics to hint at the possibility of retaliation if he continues to resist seduction, or adding context in which she’s in a position of authority and then puts some authority in her tone of voice and body language. Perhaps just changing the tone of voice and body language for both could work.
In any event it’s great that no means no. People should take no for an answer. But then there should be other corresponding changes; less coyness, and clarity and straightforwardness that might once have seemed unseemly. People used to say, “All’s fair in love and war.” That was always misleading and problematic, and it’s clearly not the case today. But no fair arbitraging the old ways with the new; say what you mean.
3
I remember thinking the song was creepy the first time I heard it, as a preteen not long after the sexual revolution. Cigarettes and alcohol, reinforcing coy/preying stereotypes. It's a fine song in the context of entertainment and history, and certainly should be heard. But associating it with the warm fuzzy Christmas vibe, and having people fight for it to stay part of their Christmas experience is even creepier now.
9
@Ted Flunderson
I don't agree that the song is creepy, but you have one good point - there's no reason this should be thought of as a Christmas song.
4
Retro analysis is not going to do positive things for the #me campaign. Every time someone hears a song written before they were even born, that reminds them of an episode that occurs in the present, is that then subjected to an assault on what the song writer’s intentions were? If everything becomes retrogressive how is that progressive thinking.
4
The song is more than 70 years old, it isn’t really that surprising that we have outgrown it.
The times keep changing, and that isn’t a bad thing. Some people lamented the loss of the corset, just as loudly as this song. Music has its own fashions.
3
I don’t believe we have “outgrown “the song which to me is lovely, romantic, funny. and intelligent. As an “astute “ Fox personality commented this is political correctness gone berserk. In my opinion not a word of the lyrics can be construed as date rape. What if female and male roles in song were reversed would it be acceptable?
6
@Covert Aptly named ! Covert , no one in their right mind lamented the loss of the corset ; you must be a guy , to make such a statement . Just like some women burned their bras in the 70s I'm sure the ladies of the corset era did too . I find some rap songs much more offensive , crude ; but I have the choice to not listen to it . This is nothing but a tempest in a teacup and the #me too movement needs to live and let live ; not attack and look for banning minor nonsense things else , they come across as hysterical and do harm to their cause .
The song is what it is as defined by its author but other interpretations are invevitable and allowed. They become problematic only when you or society wants to impose their interpretations on you because they clash with their view of the world. Same thing in the world of art where the painter expresses herself one way and the observer sees something different.
I'm a feminist and I'm with Shatner, and the other feminists cited. To nix this song would be to eliminate am important and delightful reminder of how much a woman's decision to stay overnight with a man once had to be attributed to other things in order to pass muster socially. The comedy comes from its situation in that very different age, and the fact that is the song is a way-oldie is essential to understanding the the song. The only thing anyone contemplates being in the drink is alcohol. It is an ode, not to an age in which male bullying was acceptable, but to an age in which it was so far from publically-acceptable for a man to bully a woman in any way that it was unthinkable in the polite circles which found this song appealing. What's changed is not the degree to which bullying behavior has become unacceptable, but the degree to which it has been exposed, in part because women have gradually found the voices they did not then have, to discuss more publically things which happen behind closed doors. even when they start with consent. This song, however, never portrayed an example of bullying; it is one of the best paens to a mutually-arrived at decision which has ever been written.
28
@MAmom2 Yes, I agree. Furthermore, the woman doesn't sound like she is suffering while being coerced.
6
This is much ado about nothing. Perhaps I'm naive, but I always had the feeling that there was just a little more smooching going on, nothing more. Having lived in the northern Midwest and New England, I can attest to the fact that it is indeed cold outside around Christmas time. Who wouldn't want to linger just a little bit longer, especially when feeling romantic at the same time?
20
Vladimir Nabokov and Aldous Huxley must be splitting their sides in the afterlife or, in Huxley's case, perhaps on another planet. No a person reading this post got here because their parents went to the grocery store one afternoon. The song is silly, playful, and if you're offended, don't listen.
24
I am shocked. Almost as shocked as when I saw Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The huntsman disobeyed the Queen's orders to kill Snow White and brought back the heart of a dear instead. Disobeying the command of a superior should not be allowed. What if John McCain refused to fly bombing missions over Viet Nam? Where would we be today?
8
... Over a hundred years of musical and film content is Replete with currently unacceptable inferences and references. This content probably should not be considered an Endorsement of these unacceptable moral perspectives.
I would think (hope) the honor system would be adequate for the individual to assess for themselves the quality, character and significance of this content.
My spouse and I were recently taken aback a bit on some glaringly misogynist dialogue in Humphry Bogart's Dead Reckoning (1947) ... we did, however, survive.
6
We seem to be okay - asking our kids to sit on the lap of a costumed stranger, who then will enter your house through the chimney while you are sleeping and leave gifts for your kids. That is creepy ..... this song, not so much
28
I want to thank the overwrought opponents of this Loesser classic and the knee-jerk reaction of some radio stations for reminding me of the sweetness and romance of this song. I googled the entire lyrics and to this supporter of women's rights the evil is only in the mind of the opponents. Surely, when some, maybe most, women say "no," no means no. But in the context of this song's lyrics and how "no" is sung by the object of seduction, there is no transgression going on.
I hope this controversy will attract a new generation to the joyfulness of "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
23
“I think the song has always been creepy, but we didn’t have the words to explain why,” said Lydia Liza"......who is all of 24 years old. Maybe it has "always" been creepy to you, since it first entered into your consciousness maybe 10 or 15 years ago, but plenty of us old folks have been able to understand the nuance of the lyrics (which portray the paternalistic double standard of the day....something truly creepy) and appreciate the sophisticated song structure and rhythms for much longer.
20
I had the great good fortune to hear this song sung by Dr.John and Maria Muldaur about 20 years ago in a tiny venue in Hartford. It was sexy, it was fun and it was in no way demeaning. It speaks to common humanity -- we all want to be desired, even pursued, while always reserving the option to say "No, thanks." That's what this ditty is about.
24
Yes, it has always been a creepy song. Yes, it was a product of its time. And yes, the meaning and playfulness of the lyrics depend on the way it is performed (and by whom). I’m glad it’s been largely banned from the Christmas play;it’s, though. It was never a holiday song.
Regarding Shatner’s weirdness, I’m wondering when “clutch your pearls” became the catch phrase (dog whistle?) of the right. I’m seeing it everywhere these days. That would be a good subject for a NYT essay.
2
@Passion for Peaches
It hasn't been banned from Christmas play - the one station making a big deal of it ended up reversing course as most of it's listeners wanted the song in rotation.
10
@Details, my previous reply to you has not posted, but I want to add that my local (live DJ) radio station won’t play this. Nor will any of the stores in my (wonderfully liberal) community. It may be just “one station making a big deal of it” (i.e., getting attention in the news), but the reaction is widespread. And that is a good thing.
1
@Details, I meant banned by those who see the insidious rape message in the song. Modern people.
Judith Smith describes my sentiments perfectly. I always thought the song was more about Mae West's internal deliberation than Rock Hudson's suggestion. I thought she was debating more with herself than arguing with him. If you reverse the gender roles, the song basically becomes a parody of the man's unwillingness to commit.
The point is the song is a fun and flirtatious joke. The tension between genders is the bread and butter of musical romance. Can you name one romantic musical where one or the other party didn't say no for some reason at first? Even modern musicals like "Moulan Rouge!" or "La La Land" follow this same basic plot line.
I can understand William Shatner's point. The formula dates back to Shakespeare at least. You either have reluctant lovers or mistaken identity. Everything else is just dance and music. If you want a song about date rape, check out Sublime's "Date Rape." The title says it all.
For everyone else, I suggest you enjoy "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for what is was meant to be.
30
That Lydia Liza song is really flabby and uninspired. The guy sounds like he wants to get rid of her pronto... he doesn't sound attracted to her at all! I can't believe people feel this is an improvement on the original. The song has been drained of all desire, and it just sags. You might as well write about watching grass grow.
9
Thank you for reminding me of this song!
I just added it to my Christmas playlist.
People, lighten up. The lyrics are cute and uplifting and the melody contagious. There is no intimidation or force.
Why aren’t we paying more attention to global warming?
20
It's a tough one. If you listen to these lyrics in 2018 with #metoo in the background and a literal mindset, it's inappropriate.
But on the other hand, if you apply that test, you probably have to discard thousands of romantic pop songs of the last hundred years, because so many of them feature aggressive men courting in ways that are not OK today.
And then once you have sanitized pop music, it will be time to trash most Broadway musicals, 30 or 40 great operas, most of Shakespeare's sonnets, just about all the Cavalier poets, a dozen or two Greek plays....
Once you get into the cultural expungement business, it becomes really hard to stop.
25
@Tom
This isn't a problem with metoo - the man is applying no force and holds no power over her. The only power that is pressuring her is the worry about what the neighbors or family might think.
11
Not all seduction is sexual assault. Not even today in the #metoo era. We've always loved the Ray Charles/Betty Carter version of this song. I've never heard it, in this version, as the woman being afraid or feeling compromised - more that she wants to stay, but she's trapped in a world of the expectations of others (my mother will start to worry; my father will be pacing the floor; my sister will be suspicious), and he's simply encouraging her to do something they both want. That's how romance worked in those days.
25
@Kathy D, I’m old enough to remember that “romance” decades ago meant a man getting pushing to get what he could from a woman (or girl), who would be labeled “easy” if she acquiesced...or even if she was raped.
Americans are just not subtle thinkers. This tempest-in-a-teapot controversy stems from an ignorant insistence on literalism and the inability to contextualize. Not to mention a puritan lack of humor. The song is 75 years old, people. We are on the eve of destruction, to quote from another song, and this is what concerns us right now?
29
A very misleading article in what it leaves out.
In the many versions I’ve heard (although my sampling’s limited to African-American singers, e.g., Hot Lips Page, Dinah Wahington, etc.). In those versions, the song ends with:
Man: Look out the window and see all that snow blowing"
Woman: Hey! Who’s that woman coming up the steps!?
Man: Oh, that’s just a friend of mine.
Woman:Oh, I get it. You’re just trying to get rid of me! Well, that’s not going to work! I’m staying right here!
Man: OK, sweetheart. (Giggle) you wanna come upstairs to see my etchings? (For you young folks, an old cliche that).
Both singing: Because it’s cold, out.... side.....
Just a little joke about old, stereotyped sex roles, with the man the gentle (the dude’s begging! And never forceful!) and the woman teasing him with ambiguous excuses & playing what was then called “hard to get.”
Protests against this song just feed into right wing propaganda.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned that some of the protesters against the song were really right wingers trying to make feminists look unreasonably politically correct.
14
Oh dear folks we are all so serious we no longer get the joke. The Santa Claus Mommy is kissing is Daddy in his Santa suit for the kiddies. I guess you've got to be old enough to remember the old Hit Parade to get it.
10
Not to mention the most perverted song of all, 'I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." Talk about child abuse! Ban it NOW!
8
Santa Claus is her husband in disguise. Ho Ho Ho
1
This is such a catchy tune and one I have loved for all of my life.
As several others have said, context is important here. Can we not relax just a bit with the literal translation of clever lyrics? Listening to this song is everything about flirting with the idea of romance. Even the reference to "what is in this drink" can be taken literally, but can also call up that giddy feeling we all get when we first realize that that other person makes us feel special. Those butterflies in the pit of the stomach are a gift. If we lose all possibility of romance and flirting we will have lost some of the pleasures of living.
20
The far left and the far right should get together and just humorlessly bore one another into a stupor.
30
Today’s version
Male: “Baby, it’s cold outside..”
Woman; “Siri says it is warming until Tuesday.”
Male: “ But, baby it’s cold out there...”
Woman: “Refresh your app.”
10
I've been flirted with and I've been assaulted. I know the difference. I love the song as it reminds me of the innocence of flirtation and desire and not the power play of assault. I wish the focus of this fury was on real problems, real assaults.
73
Thank you. Well said. Let’s lighten up. It’s flirtatious, innocent and has a great melody. Persuasion (as opposed to intimidation and aggression) is part of the romantic games people have played since the beginning of time.
Let’s put our attention on the serious issues.
18
@Eli Totally with you on this one. I still see the lyrics of this song as an innocent, sweet and sexy flirtation between a coy woman who wishes to be persuaded and man willing to sweetly do so. Sure the words absolutely can be recast as the woman 'being put into a spell' by the drinks being offered, etc. But I stick by the song as a classic written for a completely different audience from a long ago era where women's sexuality needed to be subtle and reluctant. Let's try to show some capacity for discrimination on intent.
12
@Eli Agreed! I'd like to see Jeffrey Epstein in a nice warm jail cell and Acosta out in the cold. I think spending time thinking about the lyrics to "Baby It's Cold Outside" takes the attention away from the very serious issues at hand. I read about an individual getting away with sex crimes against young girls. And we're worried about song lyrics?
2
Not much chance of the Liza-Leman ski version lasting seventy years. A boring, bloodless, emotionless exercise on PC.
7
People inveighing against this song are over-reading the lyrics and ignoring the melody. The intertwined melody--in which both partners are singing in the same key, even exchanging melodic lines, and where they end up singing in unison--tells an important part of the story. I am happy that sexual assault is taken more seriously than it was 70 years ago, but the recent attacks on Baby It's Cold Outside are silly and ultimately counter-productive.
30
@Rose
Yes! At the end of each verse, the duet sings "Baby it's cold outside" IN HARMONY! As in agreement or concord. Stand down, Fun Police.
12
@Rose In popular songs, everyone's pretty much always in the same key at any given point. Now, Stravinsky's arrangement of the song.
I think you mean "homophony" when you say "unison." Also very common.
There are certainly aspects of the melodic contour and the part-writing that support the idea, and it's crucial to pay attention to the music as well as the word , but the question of what is a norm and what is an idiosyncrasy or choice, especially in a genre with very clear formal features, is an interesting one and not at all easy to answer. Not to mention that just because it's charming doesn't mean its not also disturbing—all the more so, to some, to sugar coat such a narrative and project it as innocuous.
If ever there was a poster boy (poster person?) for the tendency of those on the Left to reflexively genuflect to each other when getting together to shush out their next victim, it's their mindless attack on Frank Loesser's brilliantly satirical 40's Christmas carol, 'Baby It's Cold Outside'.
Loesser's carol was modern, lyrical , catchy and sly and I think exquisitely representative of a nation, during the closing years of the War in the 1940's, that desperately wanted to begin to celebrate life and the new sense of Liberty our country (and the world) had earned in helping to turn back the forces of repression and stultification that had arisen during WW II.
So sorry to inform the modern version of the censorship squad, but Loesser's carol is not about repression or objectification, it's about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and perfectly captures that spark of a nation who refuses to give in to darkness, authoritarianism and dismay-And yes, I think still a perfect brew for these times (as well). Beam me-up Scotty!
13
@Birddog Just want to make sure you understand that "those on the Left" do NOT "reflexively genuflect to each other" etc.: I am definitely Left but I completely agree with your assessment and that of many others who have commented on the historical/societal context of this song. And I'd bet that many of those others who are rolling their eyes along with you and me are also as Left as I am. You make good points, but maybe you could do it without making insulting comments about those who don't agree with you about all things political? There are those on both the Left AND the Right who do know how to think for themselves.
5
I guess I'm not the only one who thinks it sounds a little creepy.
If people must play it, play it in January or February - it has certainly nothing to do with Christmas.
1
@MJM If people play it you don't have to hear it ; lighten up , too much reading into an old song. This is just as bad as having the moral police of some middle eastern country dictating how a woman must dress ; this is still America and no one is entitled to dictate what others should listen to . Is book burning next ?
2
I always thought the song a little strange as well, but it helps to hear the entire thing and consider that both sides might be working at agreeing:
"Well, yeah, it IS cold out there... Maybe we can work something out..."
As a romantic song, and as a couple thinking of "out there" as the "cold cruel world," it is worth "considering" - making a life together.
The song is of my parent's generation, and women - my mother included - knew how to say, "Knock it off, buster!"
As for my father and the men of his generation, i often heard them advise:
"Well, the smart thing to do, son, is to listen when the woman speaks - and then do what she wants to do."
My parents were together 50 years. They had a lot of kids, a lot of work, and a lot of laughs.
Sadly, boys and girls, men and women, now seem to care less about each other - and too much about someone else, someplace else... All the time...
5
(shakes head) People REALLY need to do something better with their anger and anxiety and time - participate in a protest, write a letter to your Senator, run for local office, help out at a shelter, volunteer/donate at your local food pantry. DO something that will make a difference rather than complain about a song that is far less foul than nearly everything on the radio today.
15
Censorship is censorship
Remember when there was a push to ban "Imagine" by John Lennon by those who said it was promoting communism?
Those people back then are no different from those today looking to curtail freedom of speak today.
ALWAYS STAND UP TO CENSORSHIP
whether it comes from right wing or left wing extremists.
20
@Hank Do you actually know what censorship means?
If the government was acting to have this song banned from ever being played again, that would be censorship. When a privately owned radio station chooses not to play it anymore, for whatever reason, that is actually NOT censorship, that is freedom.
2
This whole thing is nuts. This was an innocent, cute song
and all the people who heard it and loved it in the early
days are dead.
Maybe the #MT movement should sue the Loesser estate for writing date rape songs. While they're at it let them look for other "suggestive" songs to attack. How about some rap lyrics. No shortage of sex there.
How about "White Christmas". To me that suggests a
Christmas for whites only. Let's get the NAACP involved
and pull "White Christmas" and all songs by that father of
bigotry, Bing Crosby.
13
I have also read that during his time in Greeley, Colorado Sayyid Qutb was much offended by many aspects of American life and culture. Apparently he took great exception to Americans taking care of and spending time in their yards. If Sayyid Qutb is an acceptable arbiter of what is good and bad in America then someone turn off the lights - please.
13
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a song about two adults FLIRTING. It's a great song.
I guess today's version would be:
[Woman]: I have to go home.
[Man]: OK. Bye. [turns on Netflix]
48
Oh, PLEASE! This is PC gone amok. This is such a sweet story of a tune. Stuff like this hasn't been written in years. All of you "offended people," are you OK with the venom in today's pop music? Those outright calls to violence of all kinds don't bother you, but this does?
Y'all need get a life.
19
@comtut Exactly. They picked a soft target to gang up on, rather than take on the real brutality of rap, hip-hop and rock-and-roll.
5
What is really threatening to current PC thinking is that, in this flirtatious song on any plausible interpretation, "no" doesn't actually mean no.
That goes against the literalist and psychologically obtuse dogma that people can and must always explicitly acknowledge what they feel and desire.
But political correctness demands that we simply deny the data.
3
I am a feminist who loves this song. I know what I’m about to say is shocking, but the woman doesn't mean it. She doesn't want to go home. She’s kidding. A woman who wants to leave does not give as a reason "my maiden aunt's mind is vicious." This is banter. They’re having fun. That’s why she never says "goodnight" - just "I really should go."
I understand this is the wrong cultural moment to defend a song where a woman says “no” playfully, but have you never said “I should get going” and then stayed? As a huge fan of the SLOW Betty Carter and Ray Charles version, I actually think this song is sexy (and that they're the only people who sing it right.) I picture Betty leaning against Ray on the couch, laughing about how scandalized her family will be if she doesn't get home soon. NATURALLY, if she means every word she’s saying, the song is hideous, the man is evil, and the woman is a moron who stays in a man’s apartment because it’s snowing. But I think they're two happy adults. And I am sick of the literal-minded prudes who accuse Frank Loesser of condoning date rape. Ban the song if you must, but please don't make it into something it's not.
35
@Kate: You said it much better than I could. What you write will be "shocking" only to those who don't acknowledge that people sometimes say things that they don't mean. Some of us have known it for a long time, and the fact used to be generally recognized.
8
@Kate
Respectfully, the Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Jordan version stands above all the others.
2
@Kate This is a consequence of English majors taking too many multiple choice exams and doing all those poster presentations. They have forgotten how to read. If we went back to essay exams, we would have a much better world.
4
"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus", has got to go too!
12
So when does Every Breath You Take by the Police go on the chopping block? Now THAT is one perverse song
13
@Mikebnews
Sting has mentioned this many times. He remains bemused by the fact that his song about a man obsessed to the point of stalking has become a "romantic" wedding song.
6
Not to mention Don’t Stand Too Close to Me.”
1
The song I always hated my young daughter hearing on the car radio (for the split second before I turned it off) was that "Sexual Healing" one. Ugh.
3
@Julia And that's the point YOU turned if off. The thought police are in charge now and they will decide what's best for the rest of us. In Fantasyland maybe. Time to ban all of those who want to ban things.
2
@Margo Channing
In fantasyland indeed. No one - even the people nuts enough to see this song as a problem - is suggesting banning this or any other song.
Wake up, guys! Sex is life. And by the way, it’s not cold outside. While we have been fooling around with nonsense like this, the heat isn’t going to produce babies but death. That adults would be tangled up in today’s semantic solecisms boggles the mind.
4
We think the only reason this song should be banned is global warming. Now if only someone could find something wrong with "All I Want For Christmas Is You"...
2
I'm not surprised it's an Islamic puritanical conservative who sees the problem with the song. It's a woman choosing to have sex against the mores of the time, just looking for an excuse.
I'm just surprised so many others go for it. This is flirtation, and for the time, feminine sexual empowerment, as she is clearly as much into it as he is, only a feeble concern of what others will think holding her back.
12
The song isn’t a verbal call and response. The two are saying the repartee in their heads: Meaning the two are going over the arguments in their heads. Notice the overlap in responses in the original version. The song is far more profound than the simplistic interpretation given by many.
12
Boy, am I ever out of it!
When I caught wind of this kerfuffle I added one and one together and concluded it must be over climate change!
Well, don’t stand there, let’s rescind all awards for this dodgy old song!
The guy in Ms. Liza's song sounds like he's trying hard to get rid of Ms. Liza and like she wants him to beg her to stay!
5
@Sheila That was my reaction also.
3
I am all for political correctness and the Me-Too Movement but this controversy over the lyrics of the song is ridiculous. While some folks feel it is creepy and alludes to date rape and drugged drinks, the fact is you can read whatever you want into so many other songs written over the years. It was written many years ago as a cute, lively song for a movie and the woman flirtatiously wants to stay although she continues giving excuses. Don't tell me that you haven't wanted to stay with someone for an intimate encounter and simultaneously given excuses similar to the woman in the song? Human nature is being "grounded" for thinking sexual thoughts and for fulfilling desires. How do we turn that part of us totally off? If we all read into the many layered meanings of song lyrics and complained that they were about sex or date rape, there would be few songs left to listen to. We are human beings, we flirt, we talk, we sing, we rejoice, we make love, we are sad, angry... you get the picture! Think of other classic songs such as Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay", Def Leperd's "Love Hurts", Foreigner's " I Want to Know What Love Is", Queen's "I Was Born to Love You", Prince's "Do Me, Baby", the list goes on. When radio stations decide to exclude once popular songs that certain groups object to, then this type of censorship is the real problem in our country. It is remarkably easy to switch to another channel or turn the offending music off.
12
@Bets64
I guess you are for other people's PC behavior
NOT if it applies to you.
Your argument sounds like so many others ...
Oh, and don't forget the rendition in Glee where two guys perform it.
2
Really? By simply reading the lyrics, without hearing the traditional light-hearted delivery, one might view the man as being a bit boorish. That said, he's ONLY ASKING.
3
Oh, wow. This song is absolutely about date rape! "What's in this drink?" I've never paid attention to this song, although I think I've heard it, and I've certainly never listened to the lyrics. The problem with this kind of thing is that it normalizes and minimizes the horror of what is actually being said by putting these lyrics into a catchy little happy tune -- and then associating it with Christmas. It's just creepy and seedy. What a juxtaposition... Imagine a Disney movie where a prince and princess are singing this to each other? That's what this feels like. Horrifying.
5
@Misplaced Modifier - Get a grip, otherwise you may never get to leave your BUBBLE.
11
@Misplaced Modifier
Horrifying really? Better stay away from everything cause you never know what's lurking or the hidden meaning in that Jif commercial. Stay indoors, don't watch TV or turn on the radio. Enjoy your sheltered life.
4
Lol Sinefile and Margot, I think you guys need to get a grip. That my comment creates such an intense reaction in you is ironic. I assume both of you are over the age of 40.
The #Metoo movement has officially jumped the shark. The thought police are out in force. What's next? Banning books? Banning thought altogether. To think I once admired the movement, no longer. The delicates out there have gone much too far. Perhaps what Catherine Deneuve said so many months ago was correct. I love this song and will continue to listen to my mix tape of my Christmas Song and think happy thoughts. You women of the "movement" do yourselves a disservice. You are not to be revered any longer nor considered heroes. Time for you to grow up and we the public will decide what we like or don't we will not let you decide for us and not force OUR views upon anyone. This way to the egress.
14
This is the last straw! I'm joining the NRA and registering GOP.
There comes a tipping point where an otherwise valid movement becomes difficult to take seriously. Let's put this in the category of "bring home the bacon".
7
@bpedit
Neither "bring home the bacon" (which was laughed at in liberal circles as much or more than it was in conservative circles) nor the fuss over this song, is mainstream. One station dropped the song, and everyone had to go put in their two cents - and the station that dropped it restored it because most San Francisco listeners wanted it back.
2
I’ve looked. I’ve listened. I’ve given this song the semi-serious thought it deserves. Yet I have been unable to find a victim in this scenario. I guess it all depends on who you think is in control here. To me, it’s the woman. As it should be, right? Good. Now let’s pay equal, sustained public attention to women’s reproductive rights, the scandalous issue of unequal pay, and the overwhelming dominance of men in political and corporate power. Women, don’t fall for easy, emotional diversions. Reach for the real power.
17
I almost NEVER agree with Tucker Carlson, but I do agree that this is a romantic and sexy song. It's a song about a couple that are in the beginning stages of their relationship and there is a lot of flirtation, mystery, and give and take. I just think the guy is pursuing and the gal is enjoying playing a bit hard to get. As for "say, what's in this drink," I've said that myself because I'm not a big drinker and just about any drink seems strong to me, and frankly it's enjoyable. My husband of forty years still finds it a little strange that one drink is all I can handle. It is very sad though, to know that young women these days do have to worry about people putting something in their drinks. That is a terrible thing, but this song is not.
22
The whole point of the song is that she's playing hard to get; I know it's hard to understand because it doesn't involve swiping right or left, but take a minute to understand before you tear down every single thing that sounds off color to you.
19
Great article. I've always loved this duet but a couple of years ago I suddenly heard it differently and thought, "wow, it's a bit creepy!". After more listens I don't think it is about date rape or condones attitudes that might support date rape, but simply a melodic dance that highlights the different societal expectations and perspectives on male and female sexuality and how it played out in negotiations of sexual relations back in the day. Anyway, thank God we can have this discussion nowadays, a discussion which reflects the increased power of women in our society, which is certainly a good thing whatever the final coda for this song.
5
Listen to me, baby
There's something you must see
I want to be with you, gal
If you want to be with me
It aint that I'm questionin' you
To take part in any quiz
It's just that I aint got no watch
An' you keep askin' me what time it is
I am just a poor boy, baby
Lookin' to connect
But I certainly don't want you thinkin'
That I aint got any respect
You know I'd have nightmares
And a guilty conscience too
If I kept you from anything
That you really wanted to do
It aint that I'm wantin'
Anything you never gave before
It's just that I'll be sleepin' soon
It'll be too dark for you to find the door
But if you got to go
It's alright
But if you got to go, go now
Or else you gotta stay all night
—Bob Dylan
1
Looks like we are going to have to ban 90 percent of the Rap and Hip Hop music now...
16
@Roy
99% if this song is the line.
Now, the probably 40-50% that actually does represent real date rape, rape, murder, assault, bigotry - it could well go away and I sure wouldn't mind that.
This is ridiculous, and I actually agree with Shatner. If you really want to talk about creepy, how about "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus," or the disturbingly paternal "Have yourself a merry little Christmas?"
5
@UticaCraig
" disturbingly paternal "Have yourself a merry little Christmas?"
What song are you listening to?
3
What next? “ I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa...” considered an adultery song?
7
While we're at it, I am very concerned about, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". What exactly are we promoting with that Christmas jingle? I think that we also need to take a look at the gun violence promoted by, "A Christmas Story". My apologies to those who are sarcastically challenged!
7
Frank Sinatra would have had something to say about this, and it wouldn’t have been 'fit to print' either.
9
The only instance I might have a problem with this song is if Bill Cosby were singing it.
15
For the last several years, my private name for this song as been the "date rape" song. I've hit "thumbs down" on my smart speaker and always skip it when I hear it on the radio. I'm glad this article was written.
6
@Cameron Sturdevant You see it that way because you are looking through the lens of your time. If you had any imagination you might be able to see the way it was viewed at the time. This song was one of my parents favorites. I think that they saw it as a cute prelude to consensual sex. As much as you might think that women's feelings about their sexuality is suppressed today, when this song was written it was much more extreme. Rather than viewed as a song where a man is forcefully coercing a women, it's about a woman overcoming her inhibitions to give way to her desires. You need to learn that everything is not about you. Your thoughts are every bit as colored by the conventions of your time.
8
As a German kid - age 9 in 1945- happily under American occupation and pet of the local OSS continent and thus exposed to American music., lots of Jazz and Blues on AFN [American Forces Network] I also heard this song the first time I think in 1949 and felt it meant the man wanted to cuddle with the woman, that women were meant. at least initially, to resist a man's imprecations was also clear to me, although the question of when NO meant NO, and forever NO or whether the woman really wanted you to persist never found a generally satisfactory resolution and was left to the specific incident.... fast forward to the Kavanaugh hearings and the manner in which a puritan culture seeks to deal with sexual desire among adolescents, and a forever infantile culture.
6
Oh, no, not a song about seduction! Egads! It should be replaced by a catchy holiday ditty where a man's lawyer and a woman's lawyer are exhaustively negotiating the preconditions of a first date.
17
Bondage, submissive/dominant, master/slave relationships have all gone mainstream and accepted - and people can't understand a song with this type of flirting in it? You've got to be kidding me!
This is such a traditional, "I've got to play the good girl, but I want you to convince me" type of flirting, seen in tons of movies, both back then and even today. I'm not a fan of the term 'political correctness' - as too often it's used to denigrate the expectation that you don't use slurs to refer to minorities - but this is exactly the nonsense that has people thinking that PC has gone too far. Come on now.
In the song, the woman knows that by the established moral standards she ought to say no - but she clearly doesn't want to. So she's choosing to do what she wants, and allows herself to be persuaded. It's a variety of flirting - she says she ought to say no, while making it clear she is looking for any excuse to say yes.
19
Ridiculous reaction to a song whose lyrics and presentations set out a playful, romantic exchange between a woman and a man. Romantic songs of years past become problematic if “love” is replaced with “sex” in the lyric. “My Fair Lady” becomes only a story of emotional abuse to a woman and its song “On the Street Where You Live” the lament of a stalking male.
The coy “resistance” of the woman in “Baby it’s Cold ...” is merely with dated cultural excuses and not personal objections. The man’s entreaties are either expressions of his personal warm feelings for the woman or his distress in her leaving.
Condemnations would more righteously be directed at lyrics of todays rap-or its current progeny.
6
The backlash against this song is a really frightening look into the thought process of Millennials.
They make zero effort to understand the historical context of the song. They have no interest in anything other than their own perceptions.
Hey, Millennial females and those who identify as female: 75 years ago, the "choice" you have to say "yes" was not an option for most women, unless they were prepared to accept heavy social consequences. Sex was for procreation, not recreation. Women lived with their parents until marriage, their husbands until widowhood and their children until death. You were expected not only to play "hard to get" -- but to BE impossible to get, irrespective of what you wanted.
The freedom you enjoy today to be sexual outside of marriage is the result, in part, of a changing culture that acknowledged women as sexual beings. You hear a song about date rape; women of older generations hear a song in which a woman is lamenting the difference between what she wants and how she has been taught to act.
Before you lambaste the song and demand its banning, how about understanding what it's really about? You might be surprised at what you learn.
48
The version by Homer & Jethro, with June Carter, is the funniest and the creepiest
The lyrics of Baby It’s Cold Outside are clear and can be heard and understood. Foul lyrics of current music cannot be heard and understood. Baby It’s Cold Outside is playful, flirtatious. It is a dialogue of attempted seduction.
7
Is this the price of progress? They could always rewrite the lyrics with her getting suspicious about his intentions with the drink and going into the house, but I don’t think anyone would listen to it. On the other hand, it might be a good anthem for the #MeToo movement. Every cause needs a great song.
Remember folks not to prefix "It's Cold Outside" with "Baby" when talking about the winter weather to anyone.
Perhaps the lyrics can be revised and the titled changed to "A Lot of Weather We've Been Having Lately"
Giving further thought to this ridiculous subject I wonder what Sidney Poitier was implying in 'The Bedford Incident' when he stated 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' to a male crew member?
Perhaps we can devolve all spoken language to grunts, facial expressions and hand gestures.
New Speak anyone????
2
This is another example of our schizophrenic culture. We accept omnipresent pornographic business online that sells every form of demeaning human behavior, but we raise the political correctness flag on a classic song about flirtation in the 1940s?
This reminds me of the effort to ban Red Riding Hood from libraries. Hedonism and Satanism is okay in rap and heavy metal, but we must protect our young from the big bad wolf.
What's next? Will we ban "I Get a Kick Out of You" because Cole Porter mentions cocaine? How about the blues classic "Ain't Nobody's Business"?
When we get on one of these kicks, we can't help swinging the pendulum too far in one direction.
12
It's really interesting to consider the lyrics from a husband-and-wife perspective rather than from the potential predator-and-prey perspective. It kind of shows that people seem to want to be outraged.
Anyway, the truly nefarious issue with the song is its glorification of smoking! It's gotta be banned forever!
1
We are forgetting the most glorious version ever: Zoe Deschanel and Will Ferrell in Elf.
Merry Xmas!
3
Meanwhile in the real world the deficit approaches 22 trillion.
9
Geez, a flirty song paying a price for a dirty mind.
Reminds me of a "joke" I heard the first time I came to the 'Baptist' South:
"Don't get caught messing around standing up, people will think you are dancing."
5
With real issues involving Yemen, BREXIT and possible impeachment on the table, I find it interesting and a bit weird that so much angst and energy is being spent on analyzing "Baby It's Cold Outside". On the positive side, at least this discussion on a 70 year old song is keeping the Kardashians off the front pages.
7
I’m a man and I know the difference between fiction and non fiction. This song nor any other work of art has influenced bad behavior on my part. I have a thought process.
6
I join the people finding that this song has always been unacceptable. I agree that this song has contributed, even in its small way, to the belief that a woman not need to be accepted when she clearly says, "No!" Moreover, even if she's tempted to stay, she tries in the song to convey that she has reasons, whether excuses or not but important to her, for not doing so nevertheless. It's the small things that can add up to mistaken acceptability over time. Small things don't always have to do that kind of adding up, but then they can, too. It's best to take another look (and listen) to see how this one applies to adding up to something indeed being very terrible. Just try asking anyone whose "no" led to a rape and hear what answer you'd get about this matter. (Also, regarding Mr. Shatner's reference to the movie excerpt video, I viewed it. Here is a case of sophistry when trying to persuade that something unacceptable for anyone is acceptable for everyone just because the sexes are reversed. Lastly, I believe that the Funny or Die parody [which is indeed terribly funny, in the literally, paradoxically sad sense of "terribly"], thoroughly confirms my point.)
1
I guess I've always found the sexual relationship portrayed in the song a bit embarrassingly old fashioned. I don't think it needs to be banned, but I wish people would stop playing it so much. I don't want to hear about someone's weird sexual dynamic when I'm trying to pick out the right meat thermometer at William Sonoma.
2
Stuff like this is what actually trivializes important issues. How bout getting serious about what is really important not a song that is obviously romantic banter between two people. She isn't concerned about him, she's concerned about the father, the mother, the brother, the crazy aunt, the neighbors...and what they will say if she spends the night. Context people, context.
15
Let the female voice lead the vocal. Better now?
1
@northlandere there is a version by the band She & Him where they do swap the traditional male and female lines.
No disrespect intended, but it's a pretty fair bet that 50 years from now the Loesser's body of work, including this song, will still be part of the American Songbook and performed. Ms. Liza should consider herself fortunate if that is the case with her music.
5
@SteveZodiac So true. People will be singing "If I Were A Bell" long after Mrs. Liza is gone.
As a die-hard feminist, I understand the critique of this song and believe it's justified to an extent. The ambiguity is exactly what makes it worth discussing. It helps everyone to think about different perspectives, and how something that once seemed innocuous may have a darker side. But censorship is not a good response for a slew of reasons, not the least of which is that this is America, not Gilead. Why can't we appreciate its relative ambiguity instead of either condemning or defending it? It's a lot like reacting to confederate statues. If we take them down, we don't wipe our history clean; we obscure it. We get to remain ignorant of the cause and effect of cultural choices. Keep it in the rotation and keep thinking about it. Time will take care of the rest.
8
@emeraldmoe Well said. If we go back to examine and censor everything from a past historical context, we're going to be too busy to do anything else. But hey, we can congratulate ourselves on how enlightened and PC we've become. Waste of time.
1
Currently I cannot think of a more aptly titled song.
The Captain is right. The early versions with choreography are fantastic.
2
Once we solve this crisis, then we’ll get to work on climate change, poisoned oceans, and the mass extinction taking place right?
24
I'm a democrat and always considered myself liberal, but this has gone too far. Things are so bad out there that I may just go to the others side.
13
@Marc Jordan You took the words right out of my mouth, buddy. However, no way I am going to the other side. It's dark and dangerous over there.
3
@Bunny
If they look at this as NORMAL for the left ...and many do ...
i'm not surprised you feel this way.
1
People complaining that other people are "too PC" is the new PC. If some radio stations don't want to air it, who cares? If some people find the lyrics creepy, who cares? Stream it on repeat at your house in defiance of the PC army. Sit and drink you eggnog with the furious and righteous knowledge that you are right and all the PC police are wrong. That's the spirit of the season.
11
Well said. People are too worried that other people don’t think like them.
3
@David No one's forcing anyone to listen to it. You can always change the station if you are so upset.
1
On one hand, the song shows the woman being pressured to stay against her will, possibly being drugged. On another hand, it shows the woman being concerned with what others will think if she does stay, if she really wants to stay. And the man just keeps insisting and hoping he'll get what he wants, showing no concern for the awkward position she is in.
So the song is a good example of two different constraints on women's freedom, and men's tendency to focus on self-centered goals. The song would be a good one to use in school to discuss gender roles.
5
@sfdphd My God she is not being drugged. If this is what you got out of the song I pity you I really do.
9
Most of the song seems playful and the woman’s protests half hearted at best. She seems like she might really not want to go and her reasons to go focus not on the fact that she doesn’t want to stay but what others will think. But the lyric “ Say, what’s in this drink?” is pretty hard to explain and takes away from that.
2
@AJ I agree except that people are taking "what's in this drink" in light of today's knowledge of being drugged. That hardly seems likely to have been done 74 years ago and almost impossible for me to think the writers of the song or anyone listening at that time would ever have thought that was anything but a joke or meaning "can I attribute my desire to a drink vs. the fact that I really have a desire" since in those days that might have been considered improper.
6
“What’s in this drink?” has been uttered by many over the ages to imply that one is getting surprisingly tipsy or perhaps using the drink as pretext for explaining out of character behavior. The similar question “What was in those drinks?” has always been rhetorical. To project any Cosbyesque associations upon this harmless phrase is disingenuous. Who knew #Meetoo had its Grinches?
9
@child of babe. watch the original. She does NOT say it as a “gee I wonder why I’m tipsy” joke. She instead scrunches her nose like there is something amiss.
Several commenters (below) object to the Times giving space to this topic, which they find trivial compared to topics such as the war in Yemen and the Mueller investigation. Perhaps they miss the many serious issues raised here besides the obvious one of respect for women. I saw comments dealing with such subjects as customs, gender, technology, regulations, music composition, and even weather (Can people in desert areas understand this song?) I compliment the Times editors for including this article in the mix of offerings. The goings on in DC are vital but we don’t need them wall to wall.
3
I'm not sure the most relevant critic of American pop culture is Sayyid Qutb. He is much more well known for being executed by hanging for his role in the assassination of Egyptian president Nasser than his musical taste. Mr. Qutb railed against much of American culture leaving the US. He decried the moral decay of US culture in the 1940's a time that most Americans view as our puritanical past.
8
It's important to differentiate the song from the performance and the performer. Dean Martin's image was that of the suave predator, but more importantly an insecure and somewhat inept one. It is hard for me to listen to his version of the song and not visualize Dean's pained expression as his ego and masculinity are slowly being deflated before his eyes. Sung by Sinatra, the song would be creepy. To a younger generation who has no memory of Dino and his shtick, this subtlety is lost. "Santa Baby" sung by the Eartha Kitt is a marvel, but sung by a performer of less power and gravitas can be offensive. Personally, I find "Rudolph..." with it's theme of bullying and being liked for what you can do and not for who you are to be far more disturbing.
2
At first I rolled my eyes thinking “really?” but then I listened to the lyrics and have to agree it’s too outdated and too questionable for radio play. People really need to start taking sexism as seriously as racism. It’s true that the girl seems to be making weak protestations and their interplay is cute but the boy/man is way too pushy and just doesn’t hear her at all. I thought i’d hate the PC updated version but it’s actually creative and cute.
2
Listening to the lyrics today is based on information thrown at us today on a daily bases. History should not be erased or banned but used as a lesson.
9
Can I assume Santa Baby is totally out of the question?
1
I have mixed feelings about this particular dialogue. One the one hand, making the song about potential date rape is absurd.
But the pestering of girls by boys for sex starts early. Women are tired of having to negotiate the mine field of saying no.
To me, that’s the culture that needs to change. Perhaps we can start by teaching boys that seduction is not a sport.
@Suzzie I agree that the lyrics are outdated. The only thing I would add to your suggestion is that we teach all young people (not just boys) that seduction is not a sport. It would make a lot more sense if this view of relations among people were a shared perspective.
1
@Suzzie: why do you assume girls ALWAYS want to say "no" to sex?
Do you believe that girls and women have no sexual desires of their own?
4
So other listeners like me, who just enjoyed the music and never listened to the lyrics closely enough to be able to write an article like this?
1
Sadness is upon us.
2
"Idiotocracy" (2006) is fast proving more prophetic than "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949),"Network" (1976), or any other dystopia one could name.
6
This song is funny, and is representative of how real adults play with one another. Considering Eliza Dushku got 9.5 million for someone calling her LEGS, perhaps we should boycott the Santa Baby song instead. That’s about a materialist gold digger willing to trade favors for gifts. I have always found that one inappropriate.
5
@Steve Nope, she got 9.5 million for getting fired after addressing inappropriate comments with a coworker. It's the firing, not the comments that won her the lawsuit.
Cmon people! I've listened to the song for years and never thought of it as anything other than flirtatious fun. Jazz standards like this were written for an audience that generally read more and understood wit, metaphor and wordplay. Perhaps audiences today raised in a more literal world of video based delivery often can't see double meaning as anything other than evil and don't understand how to have fun with language and meaning. NY Times readers being an exception, of course. And everybody takes things so personal. Geez! Cut it out.
21
The New Puritans are shaping our culture and our daily life more each day. And it’s ironic that these latter day Puritans are the same people (and their children) who in the 60’s coined the phrase, If it feels good do it. Nowadays, saying the wrong word or phrase can ruin your career and your life. Worse, it’s impossible to know what the rules are. So while this subtle Holiday song is being censored, rap and hip hop music with lyrics that would make an 80s rocket blush and that reference women in the most debased, misogynistic way possible, fill the airways—apparently because they are keeping it real. It is a terrible place to be. And we could fix much of it if prominent liberals in the media and Hollywood would speak out and remind us of the essential truth abot sticks and stones and names. Otherwise, the 1st Amendment will soon mean very little.
12
I agree. @ehillesum. PC lefitists with way too much time on their hands share the same censorship platform with right wing zealots who support banning books such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.
5
let there be debate - let there be discourse -
banning anything is dangerous
we are not sheep
we do not need moral police on the right or left or in between
let it be as complicated as it is
and - by the way - me, too.
11
@Rachael McDougall
Best comment yet.
1
Change the station if you are offended. It is your right to do so. Just be aware of the rights of others who wish to listen to the song and enjoy it and the radio station's right to air it. #firstamendmentrights
10
When I first head about this ban I thought it was fake. OK people time to grow up this song has nothing to do about rape, coercion etc. I would love to know who is behind these anonymous complaints. Probably the offspring of parents who told the darlings that they were perfect and could do no wrong and had everything done for them.
Just plain sad.
10
There are classic old B&W movie versions wherein the woman is the lusty figure and the man is trying to go home, with Red Buttons as the male. Political correctness is a neurosis.
11
To see what all the fuss was about, I've just read the lyrics of "Baby It's Cold Outside," a song I've known for years. I've come to the conclusion that Americans have totally lost their sense of humor. It's a funny song! She's dying to stay but worried about what others will think. Her guy comes up with all sorts of arguments to convince her. Equating this with Me Too strikes me as totally missing the point. Romance can be fun, people!
32
Now tell me what's he's slipped in her drink. Ha ha ha - fun-nee!
@Lorem Ipsum
gin?
vodka?
rum?
it's a fictional story/song but those are 3 likely choices ...
3
@Lorem Ipsum "Say what's in this drink?" does not mean he slipped something into her drink; it means "is it vodka? drambuie? rhum?" Remember, this song is over 7O years old.
1
Any virtue (legitimate concerns about consent) taken to an extreme becomes a vice (histrionic reactions to a holiday song).
8
If they are going to start pulling this song (of which was not written about sex at all in its original context) then they have to stop playing all of the other offensive music on the radio like music from Nikki Minaj and Cardi B to start with. How people can not be ok with listening to this song but then go and listen to other music that is about sex, drugs, and hurting other people and that be ok is beyond me. Perspective is actually listening to the lyrics of what is currently being called "Music" and really hearing how offensive those songs are. So take it off the air. Don't play it anymore on the radio, but stop playing all those songs as well.
14
I just listened to the version on YouTube. It seems to me that what this portrays is a woman whose real desire is to stay, but who is either (1) playing with the man by raising possible objections to the idea, or (2) considering what others might think of it, or (3) conflicted in her own mind.
Art reflects that people are psychologically complicated creatures.
11
At what point does this warp MeToo into a neurotic narcissistic elevation of ones self?
13
This is a case of politically correctness gone totally awry. This is meant to be playful and fun...they are flirting, playing around, and the implication is that both parties are into it. I do not think that he is trying to date rape her; to me, the "what's in this drink" comes along with the playful banter. She is conflicted because as other contributors state, society was not as accepting of such "behavior" back when the song was originally written. History and culture are part of the fabric of this song and should be viewed as such.
I wholeheartedly support the #metoo movement and agree there is ZERO tolerance for predatory behavior against females (anyone, for that matter). Society has got to get a grip and focus on what truly matters and not make an issue out of EVERYTHING. I feel focusing on such menial nonsense actually poses risk to the credibility of the #metoo movement and the like; people will start to tune it out and that behooves no one.
15
I am so glad this is being talked about. For the last few years, when I really paid attention to the lyrics, this song has creeped me out. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
1
This song is a perfect distillation of how slut-shaming contributes to rape culture. A world in which a woman can't say "yes" without playing hard to get is a world in which a woman can't say "no" and be taken seriously.
Of course this song was written at a time when the culture was different, and certainly wasn't intended to portray date rape. But its increasing popularity in 2018 suggests that we have not yet moved beyond the two central ideas conveyed in the song.
One is the idea that when a woman says, "The answer is no," she just hasn't quite been persuaded yet. The other is the idea that a nice girl would never just say, "Yes, I want to stay."
These two ideas are detrimental to both men and women, and the when this song is played on the radio and at the mall, it contributes to the persistence of these ideas in our culture.
7
@Carrie Nielsen
Do you write a piece for the local paper when a store sells something for $0.69?
An opinion piece 5 pages long?
2
Without weighing in in the songs morality, can someone explain to me why this song is on holiday playlists? I don't see the connection in the lyrics. It's cold outside from November to March where I live.
6
Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony was a work of revolution; today it’s a warm favorite of elderly patrons. Significance shifts, even as the notes persist.
7
@Tom: If the Eroica is only a warm favorite of the elderly, the Ninth is another story. Already in 1987 one musicologist characterized it this way:
"The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_McClary#The_Beethoven_and_rape_controversy
1
@Mark: Susan McClary's work is a great example of the fluid semiotics of music. Love to hear her weigh in on "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
Funny how no one is boycotting and forcing radio stations from banning any number of songs from Eminem, Kanye etc. Such delicate flowers indeed.
21
Is anyone actually offended? I have yet to hear the view (coherent or otherwise) of a single person who is personally offended. Regardless, I think the real question is why does such a small minority have such powerful influence?
20
@Joel Freeman, yes, I'm offended. I'm also the mother of 5, grandmother of 17, and a nurse. I turned the song off last week when I really listened to it. It's the story of a man not listening to no. The question is, why AREN'T you offended? Do you see yourself in the harassing man?
1
Because Bill Cosby.
Thanks for asking. Have a super sparkly day!
1
I suggest listening to this song in the excellent (and wordless) 1966 jazz version recorded by "the dynamic duo" Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith.
5
The song in context is a product of its time and after giving it a listen or two, sounds pretty playful and innocent. Conversely, reading (rather than listening to) the lyrics in 2018, you’re apt to come up with an entirely different conclusion. Context is everything. We can’t revise the past based on new sensibilities we’ve acquired but we certainly can use things such as the controversy around “Baby it’s Cold Outside” as the catalyst for a valuable debate about art, culture, censorship, and the changing nature of relationships. Banning the song solves exactly nothing.
11
How about the upbeat song In the Summer Time (Jerry mungo). " If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal. If her daddy's poor, just do what you feel." Bothered me even way back when
14
Paul wrote: To the pure, all things are pure; to the defiled, all things are defiled. (Titus 1:15)
The nasty habit of interpreting everything in the worst possible way is one of the greatest intellectual sins of both the Right and the Left. It says *far* more about those making the criticism than it does about the thing being critiqued. It is telling that Sayyid Qutb, a poster boy for takfiris, is mentioned in this context.
We have infinitely more important things to worry about instead of looking for supposed evil--and worse, "finding" it--where there is none.
10
like the War on Christmas trope that turns up around this season, too.
6
To get true impression of the playful banter this represents, one has to listen to the Dean Martin version with his cheery intonations. His version to me in the best. You can just picture having a Xmas cocktail cheer.
5
I just listened the other night to a version of this song where the lead is sung by the late, great Nancy Lamott.
Is the song fine with the PC police when the woman is the persuader, not the man?
How about a same sex version? Would that offend their sensibilities?
And people wonder how a turd like Trump could get elected President?
10
Source, The Washington Times: "The Princeton Tigertones have performed “Kiss the Girl,” a song from “The Little Mermaid,” for years. During performances at the Ivy League school, a female audience member would be brought onstage to decide whether or not a man from the crowd could kiss her."
Is this why we went to the trouble to have the sexual revolution? So that people ostensibly intelligent enough to obtain an Ivy League education could take the "dance" out of the mating dance?
There was a time not so long ago when young men and women had to work these things out face to face. The option to register with a service and make your likes and dislikes known to the entire planet was not available. A simple 'yes' or 'no' could not be executed (or avoided) with the flick of a finger.
I like women. Really, I do. I created one myself, and raised her as a Mr. Mom with my now ex-wife. She is out in the world now as an adult, and so far has been able to handle herself in the socio/sexual new reality fairly well.
Likewise, she survived being subjected to the horror of having watched the entire Disney catalog (supervised by yours truly) with all of it's sexist imagery, this according to a parent conference at the middle school, where I once again found myself with a minority opinion.
You're hearing from a guy who saw strong female leads where most of the moms saw damsels in distress. And because I validated that observation with my child, she reaped the benefit of that perception.
12
1944: I bet we'll have flying cars in the future!
2018: "Baby, It's Cold Outside" has rapist overtones.
16
The #metoo folks will lose their fight with continued attacks without considering context. The spurious charges of sexual harassment when a simple negative reaction would take the energy out of the situation. Re-interpreting a song like this without considering it is between consenting adults in the throes of courtship. As a father of a 22 year old daughter, I am cognizant of the challenges a woman faces in this world when evil men do evil things. However, I also counsel my daughter to be intelligent in evaluating when a guy is just being a moron and to tell him so.
15
@Richard Fleishman
This isn't a 'metoo' thing. This has been a theme for awhile - and most don't agree with it. A few have a problem, and that's their problem.
OK, Dad, explain away the context of "Say, what's in this drink?"
@Details So who exactly is behind these anonymous boycotts. Cowards to be sure.
This tires me. Before the controversy, the song didn't interest me, and now that I understand the words (regardless of intended context), it interests me less. Perhaps holiday music stations can survive on only the remaining thousands of recordings that are not this song. Maybe we can substitute a different song that is just as much an expression of Christmas like "I Am a Rock."
I suspect there's a strain of people who express love of the song precisely because of its ability to divide audiences politically. Congratulations: you've absorbed the meaning of Christmas.
2
I understand both viewpoints. The bigger question to me is why is this on the front page? Divide & conquer is usually the answer.
Good grief. Grow up. We seem to be in the presence of cascading mental problems. If you're not comfortable being a sexual human being, we suggest you apply for a deep space mission. Your problem is not our problem. The world will continue to spin despite your discomfort with what you are. The rest of us will struggle to get by without you.
29
Watching the original movie version, I Was more disturbed by the male's body language than the lyrics of the song. Grabbing the woman's arm as she tries to leave, removing her cost and hat, blocking the door. Try watching it with sound off. It becomes less charming.
3
Who is the behind-the-scenes Savonarola stoking all of this?
7
I have always found this song creepy. Pleased to see others are catching up.
1
Just like I don’t listen to rap turn the dial.
4
@Dee G. Maybe there are some books you'd like banned as well or poetry or movie that doesn't suit your fancy. Here's a hint don't read books that might offend you same for the movies and poetry. We are grownups here we can make up our own minds we don't need people like you to think what's best for us. Sorry.
6
The most interesting thing about the whole conversation surrounding this song is how we all can create different (and contradicting) narratives based on the same words/ situation.
We should think about that carefully before we ban any cultural artefact - and end up risking the tossing out of everything.
The song itself is less relevant than the discussion about it.
6
It's an issue of changed context. When written, it was a charming take on then common courting practice. Women (admittedly because of patriarchal standards) weren't supposed to 'succumb easily', men were to persist. Now, women are empowered, and no means no.
8
Some excellent comments!
Date rape and NO! is not a subject to just have a long lecture, or a semester’s worth, about.
Short! Then hands on practice! The instructor should be a powerful, attractive woman who knows how to say NO! And has said it.
And in such a way that she does not get killed, then or later. It is not about crushing a man’s ego. That may sometimes work for the instant, but lead to later extreme violence to the woman or other women.
First with women to women with a woman to play the role of the male who refuses to understand NO!
Then carefully selected men who are strong and powerful and quite willing to play the role without contempt.
One way of saying “NO!” mastered and several competent.
Then some simple escalating violences. Knuckle of middle finger sticking out from tight fist to the femoral nerve where it crosses the femur. This was done by a female 50 or so nurse in her hospital’s garage after swing shift. Took out 4 strong men. Sends leg spamming and drops them to the ground.
One partially recovered in about ten minutes so she repeated. 45 minutes later the police finally arrived. And arrested the men.
The same protruding knuckle hook to the temple. To the neck at the corner of the jaw. Four knuckles to the wish bone fragile cricoid cartilage just below the larynx (voice box).
Date rape for the young female soldiers in my platoon dropped from ~40% to ~4%. And the male soldiers learned no.
Actually none of the women had to use their knuckle!
4
At the end of the day it's just a song....and if people are in an uproar over these lyrics, where is the outrage for today's current pop songs? Two wrongs certainly don't make a right, but there's no comparison between this song and the hugely misogynistic catalog of rap music.
29
It's this kind of political correctness stuff that is driving America apart because the liberal correctness police is constantly on the lookout for the next outrage they can use to make their points.
8
And Fox Newstalk tells you to be OUTRAGED!!!!! about their objection.
It's outrage all the way down for you haters, isn't it?
yup! you are correct, sir
1
Alas, so the extremes really do indeed meet, after all. The late Sayyid Qutb, high-profile member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, prominent ideologist for ultra-fundamentalist Islam, proponent of violent jihad, plotter of the assassination of Anwar Sadat, and wellspring of inspiration for Osama Bin Laden & Company, was also a fierce critic of the United States, where he spent time in Colorado studying the US education system. Qutb singled out "Baby, It's Cold Outside" as a particularly lurid example of what he derided as Americans' hopeless thrall to prurience; according to Qutb, he heard it played in, of all places --egads!!!-- a church dance in Greeley, Colorado. An outrage! Shocking! And no doubt, well worth a century or two of violent jihad, if need be.
Who needs the likes of Sayyid Qutb and ultra-religious fundamentalist manics, when the #MeToo movement is already in the neighborhood? How long will it be before #MeToo and its fellow travelers argue that we follow Saudi Arabia's lead wrap women head to toe in black fabric, segregate the sexes, and forbid so much as a casual word between woman and men who are not blood relatives, and ban music and dancing --because to do otherwise exposes women to "predatory behavior" by men?
15
@Joseph Marsh
thank you. This a hundred times.
2
I never really focused on that song till my 17-year-old heard it at a store. She said. “I hate this song. She wants to go, and he won’t let her. It’s creepy and gross and kinda rapey. Plus, it’s really old and outdated.”
When I paid attention, I had to agree with her. The lyrics about What’s in my drink are particularly bad. More to the point, would any of us today want to be that woman in the song?
Time to retire an old standard that has outlived its relevance.
Add it to the trash pile of history, which is littered with everything from civil war songs—great in their day—to those women-hating early raps that William Shatner mentioned.
9
"Early raps"? Take a moment and read the lyrics of some of your daughter's playlists. If she's an average 17-year old (and that's my point...no disrespect to her in any way), you'll be shocked by what she's listening to.
7
@Serena Fox
Wow. Just wow. Old and dated. Here's some information you might want to keep handy. Stay away from Museums because of all of the old and dated stuff in there. Good luck with life.
5
@Serena Fox
In other words ban anything your kid does not like. Brace up and accept that people have differing opinions. If you don't like the song don't listen to it. We don't need you telling the world what is acceptable and what should be banned so as not to offend your sensitive child.
2
This exemplifies the problem with PC culture - mind reading. The actual lyrics, what the women actually says, is that she wants to stay but doesn’t want the resulting gossip and disapproval. Any other interpretation is all in your sick minds.
17
@Max: thank you! As is commonly attributed to Dr. Freud: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".
1
They should take out the line “say what’s in my drink?” This is where it’s creepy and crosses the line. Roofies are never funny.
6
The PCers have gone to far. Why don’t they turn their attention to rap song lyrics? And you wonder why there is a divide in this county?
8
Just listen to the end of the song – the last line –and you’ll hear nothing other than a man and a woman blending their voices together in the perfect harmony of romantic bliss: “Ah, but it’s cold outside.”
150
@Michael
Yes, yes, yes, Michael. That's it. They sing together at the end.
And there's no story if he says 'Baby it's cold outside,' and she says, 'OK, I'll stay.' Shortest song in history! First she establishes that she has the agency to make the decision. She is an independent woman, which in those days meant modern and able to move about without the help of a man.
16
@Michael
I've enjoyed the song but this modern dialogue is necessary. 1950's patriarchal coercion has no place in 21st century America w.r.t. concerns relative to the #MeToo movement, the "Women's March" movement and ever-evolving feminism for good reason.
Let's juxtapose the circumstances.
If a man wanted to go home and decline having sex with an aggressive woman, and the woman rigorously tried to ply compliance using alcohol, wouldn't that be kind of odd. Most men and women enjoy sex, but at a place, time and circumstances of their choosing.
Picture Bill Cosby singing the song as he slips a roofie into the drink of one of his many victims. It may seem an extreme example but it drives the point home.
3
it's just a song
10
Great melody. I'd hate to see that melodic genius shelved for good. The lyrics are not great by modern standards. It's a seasonal song, son, not a hymn.
I am personally more offended by "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause", "Grandma Got Run Over by Reindeer", and "Dominic The Donkey".
5
Song writers and play writes have used double entendre as a basic tool for centuries and it has enriched their works and in some cases made them timeless. If "Baby It's Cold---" gets this scrutiny and bad rap, then why not Shakespeare and you may as well include the Song of Solomon. Lord knows that there is a plethora of current material that doesn't want its message lost to some other possible interpretation. It' graphic sex and violence toward women. These should be the target of those who go after old standards.
8
How silly.
1. This wasn't written to be a "Christmas song."
2. If you watch the movie with Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams, Betty Garrett is the aggressor to Red Skelton.
3. My radio comes with an on/off button and buttons to change the channel. I suspect all these "outraged people" have similar radios.
15
Well, the new version you included in the article seems to portray a young woman fearful to follow her own desires but other driven by our traditional pre-60s sexually uptight conservative Protestant morality -- "I ought to say no" because of what others might think. I understand completely why the Moslem Brotherhood and others, Islamic or not, who are sympathetic to certain aspects of Sharia Law with respect to sexual conduct would have opposed the original. The original "wolf" of course was annoyingly persistent but he was not the grandmother eating sort.
2
Sex is never expressed in the song, only implied. Everyone assumes he wanted sex. He just wanted her to stay with him so they could then write down a sexual contract acceptable to both parties. Modern romance.
8
Culture skirmish, not culture war.
2
Hysterical over this song? Listen to Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and you can go apoplectic!
3
That was then, in 1968, and still is, one ofy favorite songs. I had a wicked crush on my H.S. bio teacher and flirted relentlessly with him. We dated after I graduated.
2
Hope we can do a better job teaching history to our youth....
1
It’s official: I can’t stand it anymore!
4
And this is why the left makes itself ridiculous -- they take a serious issue like sexual assault (Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby) and then throw a net so wide, it encompasses a 70 year old FICTIONAL SONG....which is not about assault or date rape in any way. It's two people -- two adults -- engaging in sexually sophisticated banter. It's very much a piece of the time and place when it was written.
Funny how nobody had their panties in a twist over this UNTIL NOW.
The more the left makes these ridiculous accusations, the sooner #metoo will bite the dust.
16
@Concerned Citizen:
It isn't the left making the accusations. Quit branding.
3
Political correctness out of control, and overly sensitive people reading way too much into a song.
Take this into consideration:
Different time, different values. Stop trying to find every perceived slight and bias from the past. Get off Twitter, FB, IG, SC, and whatever else and go live life.
12
People who knew both Loessers often referred to Mrs. L as "the evil of two lessers."
5
New Year’s Resolution: I’ll say what I darn well want to say. Put THAT in your pipe!
2
"a long simmering debate over the lyrics"? This is not long simmering anything, it is the current trendy issue manifesting itself on a harmless tune and right in line with the contrived outrage over "micro-regressions" and the need for "safe spaces" and other such drivel. If you want to be rightly outraged listen to the lyrics of almost any rap song and how they denigrate women and ask yourself why they have not been pulled from the airwaves
16
I agree with the ban! I'm all for flirting and romance, but this song always gave me the creeps!
1
How would Big Bird do It?
@Victoria
No one has ever accused me of not being a feminist! I’d say I’m a hardcore one. However if we are going to scrutinize the lyrics of every song and not play them because they are piggish, my old words, or misogynistic, brutish, anti women, whatever, they isn’t gonna be much music to listen to.
Be reasonable about the oldies for Christ’s sake. Be more concerned about modern Rap music if you’re gonna make a statement. It’s not PC, no but it’s often hideously misogynistic. I’ve said it. And I’m NOT SORRY.
12
I was always surprised that the Gershwins never took any heat for the overt atheism at the heart of their great "It Ain't Necessarily So".
2
From The Beatles song “Run for your Life”.
Well, I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
You better keep your head, little girl
Or you won't know where I am
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end'a little girl
Well, you know that I'm a wicked guy
And I was born with a jealous mind
And I can't spend my whole life
Trying just to make you toe the line
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end'a little girl
Let this be a sermon
I mean everything I've said
Baby, I'm determined
And I'd rather see you dead
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your… you get the idea.
4
Not a popular song in the Beatles canon and not a hit; it was never released as a single.
3
Still a classic. Still a great song. Love The Beatles to my core.
@David
And yet it still very well known. A "not popular" Beatles song is still more popular than most other bands or musicians music. But seriously, how many 60's and 70's songs songs talk about little girls or school girls in a sexual fashion?
1
This sort of thing is really damaging to genuine concern about sexual assault, consent, and #MeToo. I'm what a lot of people would call a Social Justice Warrior, and for me this is more the straw that broke the camel's back than anything else. The distress shows utter social and historical obtuseness, and follows a whole raft of much ado about nothing, trial by social media, call out culture. It's not that it's a fabulous song. A lot of people just want to scream, "it's Christmas. Lighten up already."
If it helps, people can think of it as being like the more reticent regions of our country having a conversation about offered coffee cake. Politeness demands that you say no three times, and the same applies for coffee, invitations to dinner, etc. ("Oh, I couldn't put you to the trouble." [multiple polite demurrals] "I-90 is icing up pretty good out there." "Yep." [Silence] "You sure you won't have some coffee cake before you go?" Nope...better warm up the car before it conks out." "Oh my, that would be terrible. Still, bit of coffee cake'll warm you up." Ad infinitem).
7
Well, some “classics” outlive their relevance, but “Baby It’s Cold Outside” doesn’t have to die. Modern performers have deftly handled the final, awful ending monologue of “Taming of the Shrew” without damaging that otherwise engaging masterpiece. One suggestion I offer is to have the guy offer to put some music on while she pours, which lends to creative ways for either to ask “What’s in this drink”? Of course, no means no and that line deserves a short trip to the dust bin.
Kim Crumbo, Ogden, UT
1
@ #MeToo: This is not the hill to die on.
10
I'm really sick of people always making comparisons to the #Metoo movement...if this song was made waaaayyy before these issues, it's been played for years now it's an issue. America is always trying to find things in common with negativity....this song was made by 2 married people who were trying to find a polite way of putting their company out after a Christmas party or gathering...yes now if u think about it is sounds sexual but come on...people is that all you think about?? SMH can't even enjoy a Christmas or holiday song anymore...
2
Sorry, but this is ridiculous, it is attempting to read something into a song that isn't there, reminds me of the religious wrong with their obsession about backwords recording on albums being 'satanic verses' and the like. The fact that the song was written as a parlor song means likely that there was some sort of sexual inuendo behind the song, it wasn't uncommon, especially since this was written by a married couple to perform together at private settings (yes, folks, people in the 1940's had sex before marriage, thought about sex, talked about it). What people are trying to do is overload it with meaning, making it a metaphor for all the abuse and inequality women have experienced. Among other things, it leaves out intent, Frank Loesser was not a particularly nice person from what I understand, but I doubt very much this was a paen to date rape or anything more than an attempt at a song with veiled sexual banter in it to amuse people at a party. It is reading a lot more intent into something that wasn't there.
7
Why is it that a 50+ year old holiday song with playful banter is problematic but the explicit lyrics of current rap is not? Or at least why does the NYT place on their front page worries about this long ago song with misunderstood lyrics but has not explored current explicit pop lyrics that can be clearly understood as respects sexual assault on the same scale? It's as if rap is the third rail in mainstream media cultural and misogynistic critique. I don't know if it's because the nedia will is afraid of being called racist or being told they aren't woke.
19
"My Heart Belongs to Daddy"
Now that's a song to talk about.
So I want to warn you laddie
Though I know that you're perfectly swell
That my heart belongs to Daddy
Cause my Daddy, he treats it so well…
3
I can’t wait until we ban Steve Cropper for “cultural appropriation”. So what that he co-wrote “Dock of the Bay” with Otis Reading, or “Green Onions” with Booker T., et al., and played fantastic guitar for Stax. He’s a white man and guilty of cultural appropriation!
Were “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” written today, it would be highly inappropriate. But it was written 74 years ago & #MeToo has more important things to do (but maybe not—perhaps we should eliminate the role of Ado Annie from “Oklahoma!”).
1
We must go beyond "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and examine Frank Loesser's work in greater detail. In particular, look closely at Frank Loesser's musical "Guys and Dolls." First, women should not be called "dolls." It's demeaning. Second, the entire plot is outrageously sexist and glorifies male predation. Sky Masterson tricks Sister Sarah and reduces his relationship to her to a completely pecuniary one, as he bets friends that can lure her to Havana. Once there, he plies her with liquor, an obvious prelude to rape. This musical should be never be performed in this country , and all copies of the film destroyed.
2
@Bartalk But Loesser didn't write the "book" for Guys and Dolls. The plot and dialog apart from music was written by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, based on stories by Damon Runyon. True, it's extremely dated.
1
@Bartalk You're not going far enough. Every amateur or professional theater company that's performed this musical should be fined. Likewise, actors and singers who've participated should be sent to re-education camps so they learn how to think right. And every recording of the musical should also be destroyed, wherever it exists. Oh, and "dolls" of all kinds should be re-named in some way so as not to trigger memories of this musical. This will require massive online and offline editing, but I'm sure there will be volunteer commissars ready to take on the burden of cultural cleansing.
2
"This musical should be never be performed in this country , and all copies of the film destroyed."
@Bartalk Destroyed and banned? Hmmm, sounds and awful lot like a fascism to me. The humorlessness and bullying tactics of the social justice left will be its downfall.
1
I actually agree with William Shatner--a first for me! I completely understand the concern but aren't some taking the PC aspects of the argument a bit too far?
1
We have become absurd.
8
I had to stop working to comment. It’s not a song about date rape. It’s a song about a guy trying to woo an ambivalent woman to stay over. She’d like to, but worried only about what people would think if she did - about appearances. As explained in the link in the article, written by a feminist commentator, the song was written when pre-marital sex was considered a no-no (even if there was lots of it); the "drink" lyric refers to an ironic phrase, common at the time, in which a speaker tries to excuse their own behavior by alluding to "it was the drink that did it." Plus, it's a fictional story, and doesn’t endorse date rape any more than Sophie’s Choice endorses killing your children.
Before the the anointed among us start banning this song, they should take a look at the vicious misogyny, sexism and violence against women in the rap songs that make music companies and rappers untold millions of dollars.
Here's the article:
http://persephonemagazine.com/2010/12/listening-while-feminist-in-defense-of-baby-its-cold-outside/
17
@Jonathan Ben-Asher Actually, I think the woman is referring to the nefarious practice of slipping a girl a "mickey." However, she says it jokingly and if he had drugged her drink she would not be able to speak!
I’ll bet most of the intellectual fascists who think they know what this song is about aren’t aware that it is from the 1949 movie “Neptune’s Daughter” and probably haven’t watched the clip from the movie that accompanies this article. It has nothing to do with date rape, women saying no when they really mean something else, doctored cocktails or keeping reputations intact. Watch the movie if you can or read about it on IMDB and watch the clip and you’ll see what I mean, unless it’s more important to grind your own particular axe, regardless of whose head gets cut off.
4
What a ridiculous PC argument. It's a great song. I love the duets -- it's a dance of seduction. So what.
11
While we’re at it, let’s ban Don Giovanni.
6
@Auntie social - It reminds me of "La ci darem la mano". Mozart was more melodic, though.
2
It's really a quite sophisticated song, music and lyrics. Maybe that's part of the problem.
11
The line between between seduction and coercion is sometimes blurred. If it was so simple we'd all just get bored and take up knitting.
5
[For anyone with ears to hear, the warmly affectionate vocal tones and embracingly good-hearted music make clear beyond any doubt that “Baby” is a celebration of nascent female sexual empowerment and mutual sexual pleasure.
10
"What's in this drink?" Is it rum? Is it Drambuie? What is the mixer? Not really an alarm-raising question. Have heard it asked by all the sexes at a lot of parties.
7
Another group which does not believe others may enjoy what they construe to be objectionable: Fundamentalists destroying antiquities in the museums of Baghdad. Sayed Qutb would approve.
10
To pervert the intentions of this song by subjecting it to a decades later perspective is equivalent to misunderstanding the nuances and gestures of another culture.
7
@Anthony Losardo Exactly. A twisting of another culture that could in turn be construed as "cultural appropriation"... which is, ironically, one of the seven deadly sins of wokeness.
2
This is how it starts. An intransigient and intolerant minority end up directing the whole country. In 100 years we will all be asexual vegans living in sterile plastic bubbles.
10
Why can’t it just be about snuggling and keeping warm? Whether you like the song or want it censored, you have to “interpret” to make it about sex, and interpretation always reveals more about the interpreter than about what’s being interpreted. Look no further for evidence that our culture has sex on the brain, which, as the philosopher Alan Watts liked to say, is the worst place for it.
5
@Ed - But it really is about sex.
@PM
In the--um--eye of the beholder.
I'm more bothered by the line "well, maybe just a cigarette more..."
4
LOL! yeah, me too!
1
The PC critics are not only wrong, they’re anti-feminist. The women in the song clearly wants to stay but she is afraid that people will talk. A real feminist would be rooting for her to stay, and to be as sexually free as any man.
16
This is ridiculous, especially in the times we're living in. It's a song for goodness sake. I think the song "Every step you take," by the Police is stalker-ish but I still sing along when it comes on the radio.
6
They’re pulling it? It’s unavoidable. I love classic Christmas music, but I have always detested that song, and not just for its rapey overtones. It’s just annoying.
2
@Therese - I wouldn't consider this classic Christmas music. "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night" are classic Christmas music.
1
My solution for this debate: listen to the song as if the young woman is your daughter or niece. See how much fun that seems like.
1
@ldc
I'd be fine with it, if it's my daughter or niece.
Except that she shouldn't be so afraid of if people might talk.
2
@ldc
Are you suggesting that we are supposed to imagine our daughters and nieces engaged in wooing or sex? Guess what? Everyone's kids eventually have sex. It's a normal part of life and how we humans reproduce. It does not mean we should be trying to picture others engaged in it. Normal people don't do that JSYK. I'm pretty sure all of my children have engaged in premarital sex but I am not interested in trying to envision it as you suggest.That's more than a little odd.
3
Hey -- it's a duet.
1
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a sweet call-and-response duet, written in 1944, that observers of current events are attempting to debase--nothing better to do? I always thought of it as flirty by both singers, not coercive. The line "Say what's in this drink" is certainly not about a date-rape drug; in context he made a cocktail with a generous pour. All of her objections are about what others will say, reflecting the 1944 origins.
If this "controversy" is important today, whatever will we do about things that actually matter?
16
@Leading Edge Boomer
Nothing. That's what we do about things that actually matter.
3
Seriously? People are genuinely distressed and even outraged over this 74-year-old song? Hey, fellow liberals: if we're willing to champion the lyrics of Lil Wayne and Eazy-E, then we have to allow Loesser's classic, too. You can't eat your cake and have it too.
13
I remember when people were charming.
13
Thank goodness that I met an old fashioned gal following my divorce. We are the same age -- very late 50s -- and she is feminine and loves to be treated like a woman. I like women who are feminine and who like to be treated like females. She and I can appreciate the banter in songs like "Baby Its Cold Outside" for what it is: an old-fashioned romantic tug-of-war between a male who wants to get physical, and a female who wants to make sure that she will not be discarded once the man has his way with her.
This is the way men and women related for thousands of years. It worked fine, and we have the population figures to prove it.
I pity those poor souls who have to dissect everything for its political correctness. What a pathetic way to live.
9
I adore The Sound of Music. But in this day, Liesl’s “ I am Sixteen...” gets me on the line ‘You Need someone older & wiser telling you what to do’.
I just appreciate the music for what it is & don’t take all this too seriously. Life’s too short.
5
Do people really still listen to the radio?
I might agree with the feminists on this one.
This is less an issue of consent than an issue of lopsided gender roles and equality in a puritanical cultural.
Likely this song is poking fun at the very alt right conservatives that are defending the song.
1
@Scott Spencer
1. Yes people still listen to the radio. Podcasts, playlists, twitter and Facebook aren't everything. Yet.
2. On the list of possibly mysogynistic song lyrics in pop music and opera, this one comes in somewhere in the lower 700's.
3. On the list of smart romantic duets from a culture of innuendo and nuance incomprehensible to current pop culture, it's up there with the best.
4. Everyone who disagrees with you is not an alt right conservative
5
This song's lyrics are mild compared to some in rock and blues: 'Boom, Boom Out Go the Lights'; 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl'; 'Stranglehold'. And of course every other "song" in rap.
2
How about we don't politicize something that is clearly just entertainment.
8
As someone who has been assaulted, harassed and discriminated against, I don't think the song is about rape. I have no issue with it.
9
If you listen to Betty Carter and Ray Charles sing "Baby," you see two very wise, very savvy people at play. It's not a song about power. It's a song about two people who know each other's game, and they're playing it well. Instant communication it's not. Elegance it is. Maybe cell phones, twitter, and Facebook have created a rush to judgment world that leaves no room for contemplation.
14
It's not a Christmas song, but a winter song. It's about seduction. Is there something wrong with seduction? End of the human species?
7
There’s a lovely song from the same era where both singers can have their double-entendres and equality as well. I’m referring to the Cole Porter song “Let’s Do It,” and its unforgettable opening, “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let’s do it, let’s fall in love.” Best sung as a duet.
5
The fact that we are talking about this at all, means that we don't have enough real problems to solve.
8
@Byrd Never let a real problem get in the way of a distraction.
1
There's an analogy in this discussion to the one now taking place about memorial statues to confederate soldiers. Some say the song is a reminder of the awful history of date rape and should be played as a reminder. Others think the song should be destroyed.
It's interesting to read the comments here and realize that the answer is not obvious; "it's about context", "keep it as a reminder", "oh, please, is there nothing more important to talk about"....
Should it be played as a reminder of heinous crimes, should it be removed from the public realm because it is interpreted as celebrating, or giving a pass to, heinous crimes; or, is it a big deal over nothing, "political correctness run amok"?
2
I hate this century...everything gets scrubbed of context, anything can be click bait and there's nothing that can't be held hostage as part of the never ending and counterproductive culture wars.
Look, I've never liked the song. And just because it gets played a lot this time of the year, that doesn't make it a Holiday son. (It's not.) But I defy anyone to closely examine any piece of pop culture that's more than 25 years old and NOT find something that doesn't stand up to the mores of this time. What's next, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas"?
3
Good girls didn’t do it even if they wanted when the song was written. The woman is expressing the reasons why she should not do it not that she does not want to do it. The man is unrelenting because he knows that she wants what he wants. The song reflected changing norms that would lead to a rejection of gender discrimination as well as the sexual revolution. However, without that context the words resemble what happens during date rape. So it has to go.
3
Some commenters are right when they point out that people can get up in arms about song lyrics written 75 years ago that in some way to them imply a man trying to get a woman into bed with overtones of date rape, yet will defend to the death the outright misogyny and violence of rap music as being 'culturally authentic' and said things like warning labels on rap albums and outright bans on playing them was racism (and for the record), when many of the lyrics in rap are not subtle in the least bit, women are the focus of rage and hate and all kinds of sexually demeaning language; the point is hypocrisy, arguing that rap you have to take into a 'cultural context' while arguing that a 75 year old song that creeps some people out, puts out alarm bells but is not overtly anything, should be banned from the radio, etc.
14
What's next? A blacklist of great songs from the American Songbook that give offense to some hashtag entity or other? A new industry for folksingers like the one featured in this article to provide sanitized revisions of the work of their betters? Record burnings in front of the Brill Building? How about panels of zealots examining the words of any new recordings before they're released?
The work of Frank Loesser is an American treasure. Please!
9
@Bucky, What's next? the word "blacklist". I kid you not. And I thought I had a problem with "whiteout." Get a grip folks.
1
I don't know that it should be considered taboo for someone to pursue another person. There are plenty of marriages that happened even though one party initially declined a date.
To me, you really violate consent when you physically force someone to do something they don't want to do or when you make them feel unsafe (or do something to prevent them from walking away).
Repeatedly asking someone out despite rejection may be obnoxious, but I don't think it's criminal.
3
Would there be any complaints should the roles of the performers be switched? That is, the male playing coy and the female being the lioness in pursuit? Recall that the true test of any "-ism" is reaction to role reversal. The progressives lost on this one big time................
1
Physical restraint is rape. Verbal persuasion is romance.
15
@Old Fogey The #Metoo folks don't recognize romance unless they're looking in a mirror.
4
Someone should do a new version of this song with the lyrics unchanged, but with a woman singing to another woman. The progressives would suddenly find it all perfectly fine.
13
Snicker. I've always quite liked that the duet was obviously subversive.
The Beatles "Why don't we do it in the road?" is also fun for similar reasons.
In the end, whether you do it or not should be your decision, but you probably should realize before the music starts that it takes two to tango and your partner may well be more eager to tango than you.
1
It is what it is... and while I'm loathe to agree with Mr. Shatner, compared to some modern lyrics, "Baby" is positively coy.
Take for instance, Ted Nugent's "Jailbait"
Well, I don’t care if you’re just 13
You look too good to be true
I just know that you’re probably clean...
Jailbait you look fine, fine, fine...
It’s quite alright, I asked your mama
Wait a minute, officer
Don’t put those handcuffs on me
Put them on her, and I’ll share her with you
Or various and sundry rap lyrics
Sell crack to your Auntie Denise/If Auntie Denise is short 40 cent/Make her get on the ground and .......
So, my thoughts are.... it's just not that big of a deal in the overall scheme of things...
11
I'm going to disagree with the NYT's premise that there are hoards of people protesting this song and asking for it to banned. They haven't provided any evidence of that and I haven't been able to find any. Rather, what I do see, is people who heard this song growing up and are finally noticing what the lyrics actually are. They find it interesting to analyze the song in the context of the metoo movement and to think about how standards for flirting and consent have changed as perfectly illustrated by this song. So many people here are taking offense to this conversation and I'm not sure why their enjoyment of the song should be diminished by this discussion.
7
I agree with those who say "lighten up". If we start analyzing all the traditions of Christmas we might need to banish Rudolph because of bullying. The lyrics of many songs are very suggestive, it is an art form called music, remember?
9
All the controversy caused me to like the song even more.
I had heard it a few times before, but in the past week have listened to a couple of dozen versions from many talented singers. (Hard to choose the best, but I do especially like the Idina Menzel/Michael Buble version. The music video is very charming and with G-rated lyrics.)
Baby, It’s Cold Outside - a new holiday staple in our home.
Once again, the law of unintended consequences.
6
Greenland, the Arctic, Antartica and the Permafrost are all melting faster than scientists thought possible, but this is what we are getting hysterical over. Humans are idiots.
Just another example why by 2050 we will definitely have something REAL to get hysterical about
18
This whole thing has gotten ridiculous! I remember Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban singing this in a movie. There was nothing sexual about it other than some necking as we oldtimers used to call it!
8
How has The Police's "Every Breath You Take" stayed out of the #MeToo crosshairs??
9
@G.Janeiro -That was always considered creepy.
1
Several commentators below have suggested that the woman in the song has asked to leave and is somehow being restrained by the man. At risk of getting overly technical, if you read the lyrics at no point does the woman in the song "ask to leave". She laments that she "ought to leave" but she really doesn't want to, and twice in the song says "well maybe one [drink][cigarette] more."
But rather than parse words, is the #MeToo movement really doing its extremely worthy cause any favors by going after a song that's adored by tens of millions of Americans and is obviously about a flirty exchange?
And yes, I think it's fair to point out that rap lyrics routinely use blatantly homophobic and misogynist language, and yet we're getting our knickers in a twist over this song, which at worst depicts courtship rituals that are arguably outdated today, but were perfectly normal for the time at which the song was written. Why the double standard?
22
Funny that none of those claiming this is a paen to date rape seem to have read the lyrics. yes, the man is telling her it is cold outside, she should stay, but did anyone read what the woman is singing? From reading it, it doesn't sound like she really wants to go, she manages to find excuses to stay (another drink, another *gasp* cigarette), so why does she want to go? Is she afraid of him? No, it is all about 'what people would think' if she stayed late, it is fear of what people would think about a 'respectable young woman' staying late with a man...... this isn't inuendo, it is right in the lyrics, what would great aunty thing, her brothers would come looking for her, what would neighbors think....so basically she is fighting, not with him, but the old norms feminists have spent decades fighting, that a woman was a piece of property of her family, if a man stayed out late he was a stud, a woman who did so was a slut, etc....what it reads to me is she wants to stay, but is wrestling with the cultural and religious hypocrisy about men and women, not with a man trying to force her to stay. Reading this, it is more a statement of female empowerment, since she is trying to resist the cultural norms put on women.
21
The question about what is in the drink is definitely bad, but even worse is at the end of the first section, the man replies "but baby don't hold out". To me that can only mean one thing.
1
@Matt586
And that "one thing" would mean some level of sexual activity, yes? The guy is manifesting a desire for some level of man/woman interplay.
And you have a problem with his point of view, yes? If you're an intelligent reader, you may realize that she is heading in the same direction.
Apparently you're not fully equipped to operate as a functional adult human being. Good luck growing up.
Vive la différence.
3
@Odysseus
Yes, I'm just the village idiot. As John Cleese would say, "i may be an idiot but I'm not stupid".
I had not heard this song before all the controversy brought it to light. Now I have searched it out and heard many renditions, watched several videos of said renditions. I’ve read many comments here. Much ado about nothing. I have been amused to note that Hallmark radio on my Sirius XM has included the song in their line-up, playing three different versions within a three hour time frame. A local station out of Billings, MT, returned the song to their airwaves after backlash they got when the removed it. It’s not a particular favorite of mine, but I am delighted that this song is being played in spite of it’s “controversy”.
6
It's things like this the Republicans use in classifying all Democrats as extreme liberals. It's a song, suited for the time it was written. It has a good melody and the lyrics s are not offensive unless you try and read more into it than was intended. It's like calling a Christmas tree a Holiday tree. A Christmas tree is still a Christmas tree and Baby it's Cold Outside just a Christmas song.
9
My answer to the "War on Christmas" is to use Xmas in emails and notes, and to say "happy holidays" with a giant smile every chance I get.
2
Just for the heck of it, I watched Salt n Pepa sing Shoop and I had to laugh out loud, come on baby that other old song was from another time, go watch this music video and have some fun and lighten up.
1
At age 74, I was raised in an era of misogynistic attitudes toward women. The only thing missing was the word misogynist. All movies TV shows and songs celebrated this. Men and women had defined roles, observed by everyone.
The first time I noticed change was in the early 60's when the pill was invented. Women grew much more aggressive about sex and free love entered our vocabulary. But the roles of men as the aggressor and women as prey didn't change. Bars in New York were hunting grounds for both sexes but the roles stayed basically the same. There was no guilt because everyone understood the rules and played by them. I've completely changed my thoughts about relationships and women. I've evolved but I don't feel any particular guilt about my relationships from the 60's and 70's. And while people like Weinstein and O'Reilley are criminals, they do not represent the male race but we seem to be painted with the same brush. History is forgotten and people are being convicted of crimes that weren't against the law in that time period. In conclusion, I'm all for the new standard and applaud the women who showed the courage to come forward with their testimony.
2
My mom used to sing this to me as she bundled me up to play in the snow. I'm going to keep up the tradition!
8
When I listen to the lyrics, I hear a women who is holding all the cards and in control of the situation. It is her deciision.
11
people have known for years it's a song about date rape so I'm surprised it's just now making it to the Times.
@T SB
Ah, we see that noids come in pairs. Doesn't make it real, however. Happy healing.
2
Which people? Can you be more specific?
2
We are learning and coming to better understand the lines between acceptable sexual cues, playfulness and actions between men and women vs coercion, abuse of power, nastiness and flat out criminality.
We'll get there - at least a lot of us will.
Along that learning path, let's be as graceful with and understanding of the other as we would want for ourselves.
Short of outright aggressive or dangerous behavior we can allow for the, sometimes uneven, evolution of our consciousness.
Just be mindful of the human tendency for blinding rigidity as we proceed.
3
Great article! A model for both understanding context — culture and history — and charting the complexity of its negotiation within contemporary society. The most wonderful thing is that the article performs the sort of cultural negotiation that is crucial to approaching controversies about meaning: it takes all sides seriously; it finds the most effective spokespeople for each position; it does not shut down conversation but opens it up; and it would seem to leave even the most ardent partisan in the debate with the tools to review, modify, and elaborate their position toward perhaps a more nuanced one. I had, like other responders, never really paid that much attention to these lyrics. Now the song, for me, becomes an evocation of its long history and the complex issues it raises, so when I hear it, I hear all that too. Thank you so much Jacey Fortin (and Alain Delaquérière)!
1
Should we ban the opera "Don Giovanni" about a serial rapist?
9
Great idea. Instead of struggling for just laws, fair income, stuff like that, let's fight about symbolic things that will change nothing! Wonder who thought of that?
21
@Martin
And let's further express our outrage and show how little this issue merits our time -- by commenting on the article. You've saved the world, Martin, and all before lunch.
While we're at it, let's ban "Winter Wonderland." I don't like the sound of this stanza:
In the meadow we can build a snowman
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say, Are you married?
We'll say, No man
But you can do the job
When you're in town
12
@BwayJ
“I don't like the sound of this stanza”
Is it :
The snowman? (not gender neutral)? Or it Parson Brown? (injecting religion into Christmas)? Or is it being married? (don’t label me)
3
The original song promotes the idea that if men don’t take “no” for an answer they met get the the “yes” they want. That’s the underlying message and a message that men still cling to. The fact that many other songs are worse doesn’t change that fact. Nor does the charm of the melody.
The woman’s role in the song implies that she wants to stay. Maybe she does. Or maybe she’s making excuses that take the onus of “no” off of her. Again, the song plays into the deeply ingrained cultural idea that if a man pushes long enough, the woman will give in. But we have no idea of what her true desires all because she doesn’t state them clearly, for whatever reason.
If we could have equally charming songs about a woman clearly expressing her intention and a man accepting it what a wonderful world it would be.
5
It would be a terribly boring song too.
4
@Celebes Sea
She's very clear about what she wants. She wants to stay, but she has to go through the "motions" of saying no. You can't assume that things had the same meaning 70 years ago as they do today.
Just like I, a boomer, don't understand much of what what the kids are saying today, the kids may not understand what their grandparents were saying in 1949.
2
@Celebes Sea It's just as valid to view the song this way: The woman is voicing all the social pressures that were applied at that time to keep women from acting on their sexual desires. The man is trying to persuade her to throw off the social conditioning that shackles her with guilt and to make her own decision.
I suppose this debate useful, but the controversy is ridiculous.
3
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a decent singing voice. I never realized that.
4
We know that attempts at censorship only enhance allure, and make you appear thin-skinned.
8
"I think the song has always been creepy, but we didn’t have the words to explain why,” said Lydia Liza, 24, a singer-songwriter."
I have always felt the same way in addition to never understanding or thinking this was a Christmas or holiday tune. The only thing missing from this song is the sound of the woman slapping the guy's face at the very end.
6
@Marge Keller
Or not.
3
This is much ado about nothing – trigger warnings under every rock. There’s no there there.
The furor over the song is hypocrisy unbound. Last week the Times published its picks for best songs of 2018. The lyrics for many of them make me blush. I was going to copy some of them here, but I’m sure the Times wouldn’t publish them. Check out the lyrics of “Work it” by Marie Davidson, “geek’d” by lil baby, or “I wanna be your girl friend” by girl in red – just to grab a few. These are fine and healthy for public consumption, but a flirtatious period piece isn’t - especially one in which it sounds like the woman knows exactly what is going on?
I’m as progressive as you can get, but we have to pick our battles better.
50
This is the kind of eye-rolling ahistorical kvetching that gives all political correctness a bad name. Give us all a break, please.
66
Censorship is always about power.
21
Meanwhile the most disgusting and misogynistic rap lyrics get a complete pass. That's the madness of political correctness. It's so carefully politically applied.
83
@David
Who is giving rap lyrics a pass? Misogynistic rap songs are not played in department stores or on family christmas specials. If they were I'm sure the backlash would be massive. No one is saying you can't download this song and play it in your own home as much as you like.
2
@E B sales of the song have soared. It’s a Christmas standard after all. People are sick and tired of P.C. thought policing and I’m thrilled that this cultural censorship has backfired.
3
The problem with all this is that romance is something that often comes out between a man and a woman unannounced . and it isn't always that there is a formal agreement before it takes place. Some men can't accept a cordial NO. Some women say NO long after they have implied yes, which is OK, but leave the bridge raising while the truck is half on a half off.
3
Everybody. Put on the Ray Charles- Bette Carter version. Your day will get better.
10
@PeterC. YES!!!!
1
The culture wars are manufactured by the right wing extremists to distract us from what’s really happening. When the New York Times takes the bait with articles like this, their strategy seems to be working. While this faux controversy wastes energy, our American Democracy is being undermined. Stay focused people ... #2020
21
@J. Lipp - Please let us know what organization opposed this song.
1
As with all things creative, different people percieve different meanings in a work of art....no surprise here.
3
I never thought this was a sexist song. I still do. For me it was just a banter. We have to draw a line somewhere. What's next!
Doing this kind of ridiculous things bring nothing but more ammunition to the far right.
11
Frank Loesser is one of our greatest composers. Should the title of his musical "Guys and Dolls" be changed because women should not be referred to in this way? Ditto with the song "There is nothin' like a dame" from "South Pacific"?
20
"But maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour"
On one hand, it's just a song.
On the other hand, it's a creep song.
5
@Marge Keller
Shocking! Yes, by all means, let's ban liquor and music...the devil's playthings for sure!
5
The sickness of political correctness, fueled by the Me Too movement, is running amok in America. Censorship imposed on a classic Christmas song because, heaven forbid, the opposite sexes in the song are flirting with each other. Meanwhile, not a word said about the misogynist lyrics of nearly every rap song on the hip-hop hit parade. Double standard? You decide.
42
Paul, It's not limited to the "sickness of political correctness." It's all over the place, among liberals and conservatives alike.
It's about people utterly unqualified to formulate an exegesis of anything they review. Their agenda clouds their "elucidation" of a text. That's why they often introduce their ideas with, "In my opinion...". They seem to think that that statement gives them free reign to make any unsupported point they want.
A judicious reader will see through that.
6
The song just reminds us that there really are times when "No" really doesn't mean no. Part of normal romance with a woman enjoying the attention but playing coy.
I think we can tell when a no does mean no vs. what is in this song.
16
Way to trivialize an important issue, people.
10
I think I first heard it about 15 years ago and I still think it's a catchy little song about date rape. The only thing I find stunning about this is how long it took the easily offended to discover it.
5
With this admijnistration's environmental policies, the "Baby It's Cold Outside" debate will soon be academic
11
Thankfully, the majority of the comments agree with the proposition that the adverse reaction to this song is wildly misplaced. There is some prospect that the push towards book burning can be averted. Common sense still rules.
20
@Ed Look at all the male names who like this song! There is not acknowledgment that maybe some women might possibly view it differently. For me, it says "Baby, we still have a long way to go". Back to the marching.
I am a woman.
@Groll. Since it was written at least 20 years before the "sexual revolution", it could be said "how far we have progressed". I leave it to each to determine whether it is really progress.
Compared to the truly reprehensible and dangerous lyrics in many rap songs, “Baby” seems mild even when taken to the current extreme interpretation. Let’s work on the really awful stuff first.
15
@MDR
Dangerous rap lyrics are labeled as explicit and not played in department stores or on family TV specials. There are people working to counter the misogyny in other musical genres, why does working on one exclude the other? By your logic we shouldn't working on most problems at all because there's always people starving somewhere.
I can’t for the life of me understand why everybody suddenly has decided to become offended by this song. If you’re really determined to be offended by something, I suggest you check out the “lyrics” of some popular rap music. If “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” offends you, you’d better hold on to something while you listen and prepare to be more offended than you’ve probably ever been in your life. That stuff is spewing forth from teenagers’ iPhones all over the country, and yet we don’t we hear anybody squaking about that. I’m a woman, I classify myself as a liberal, and I’m 110% for putting an end to sexual harrassment and sexual violence. It’s abhorrent and has no place in our society. But judging a 74 year old song through a 2018 lens is silly and is going to do nothing to further the cause.
53
We all know that this song has never been about date rape, but we can’t joke about something like this anymore. It’s not the song, it’s us. We’ve lost our innocence.
19
@Alex Bernardo
No, you've lost your perspective. That the media, etc react immediately by pulling a song that speaks of playful romantic negotiation, not date rape of coerced sex, suggests there's a bit too much concern over the disapproval of the #metoo movement. It seems that people can't see behavior on a continuum, anymore. Anything that doesn't put women in power and control is not automatically bad, nor does it automatically victimize her.
3
@Alex Bernardo
Actually, I think we've lost our identities. Gender fluidity, metrosexuals ... men want to be women, and women want to be men. So very very sad.
3
@Alex Bernardo - we have lost our minds
3
People are ready to die on weird hills.
Whether you think that there is a context that makes this song acceptable, or that it is just too weird and creepy in today’s context, at the end of the day I can’t see why any side of the debate would care that much whether it is played on the radio or not...
Take a breather: it is just a Christmas song. They’re not tearing down the fabric of the country, and they’re not causing tomorrow’s rapes either.
14
Interesting quote from the article:
'In “Neptune’s Daughter,” the romantic comedy that brought the song to the silver screen — it won an Academy Award for best song in 1950 — it was performed twice, and the gender roles were reversed the second time for comedic effect.'
So...if the role is man pressuring women it is possible date rape, while if a woman is pressuring a man it is 'comedic effect'? We might want to give the past a bit more credit for putting the woman in a position of power when the roles are reversed.
It is interesting this 1950s routine rankles the 'modern ear', when so many music videos, sports networks, and even news channels frequently put the man/men in the centre and the women in supporting and sometimes submissive roles. Many pop/rap acts, ESPN 'First Take', and 'Fox and Friends' as cases in point.
6
A more provocative song from a more innocent past is Lerner and Loewe's "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." Maurice Chevalier would be arrested on the spot.
11
Thank you! I've always though this song was beyond creepy, sung by leering old men. I used to be a wedding musician, and had to play it often. Thank God I only played the tune.
1
Surely this is some sort of satire spoofing the ludicrous extremes of political correctness that has currently gripped the country.
14
Shatner is right--as well as politically correct--he parodies "Don't cast pearls before swine"--only gently tweaking Rap.
The song is neither "creepy" nor "warmly romantic"--except in the eyes/ears of creepy and romantically deluded beholders.
It is biologically accurate. Darwin noted that when gender dimorphism is extreme (peacocks/peahens) those with fewer "charms and ornaments" select those with more--who strut their stuff. Selector/selected roles are less pronounced when dimporphism is less pronounced--allowing humans to do plausible role reversal--though still a joke.
It's only natural/normal/rational for woman to "play hard to get" while wanting to be gotten.
Men don't ovulate, menstruate, gestate or lactate--more dimorphism and "di-ergonomia". Gender and reproductive discrimination begins with X and Y chromosomes. (Some god stories are misogynist--for men it's easy come easy go.)
The song choreographs the "Apache Dance"--albeit a nonviolent one--with humor, charm, grace and melody. A pox on those who can't see the pearls.
5
@Michael Kubara
Thank you, the most sensible comment on here today (other than mine... if the NYT posts it.)
2
While everyone gets a strangle grip on their own opinions of the song, let me offer that it is possible that everyone is right. This song is, without exception, one of my favorite holiday songs. I can also see how the lyrics can be objectionable and how they can be playful. I did, by the way, watch the song in the original version of the movie where it is performed twice and with men and women playing opposite roles. So, there is that.
I propose a solution--rewrite the song!
Men and women and women and women and men and men and women and men enjoy each other's company and we still love to flirt. There is a way to ask and a way to be persistent while still being entirely respectful.
Try it. Can your opinion and your outrage for ten minutes and put pen to paper and do something creative.
Thanks.
Justin
3
Why not the same discourse over rap music with words and concepts I would not use. It's a beautiful song that expresses a moment in time - perhaps to this day.
8
Local performers jazz singer Jennifer Kirkland and jazz guitarist and singer, the late Bert Carlson reversed the genders to great comic effect. It was a favorite of their fans.
1
Let's pick apart Mungo Jerry's 'In the Summertime' next
3
It's interesting to see folks perform the mental gymnastics of historical context and nuance for this song...simply because they like it.
More than anything, I think this shows that the woke crowd is all for "being woke", but only when that means taking away things they don't care about. There's no intellectual consistency, just individual preferences and the need to display righteousness to social media followers.
8
@John McDavid Exactly: "being woke, but only when that means taking away things they don't care about."
When I began reading the article, I was on the side of wondering why folks were upset. Then I watched the video. The line about "what's in this drink" is the slam-dunk. So, she agrees at the end, but under what influence??
1
The “woke” crowd is way off on this one. The women in the song wants to stay but is afraid that people will talk, because she has to be a “nice girl”. A real feminist would be rooting for her to stay.
6
@John McDavid,
One can be"woke", but not rigidly attached to extreme, intolerant views that are not representative of the core issues. Intellectual consistency is good until it becomes too narrow to appreciate nuance and subtlety.
So I assume we must rewrite history and condemn nose art on airplanes from the era.
Please remember that the wars in Germany and Japan were still real and Korea was about to become a shooting war. For the GI stuck enforcing martial law in either belligerent countries, perhaps a flirtatious song actually lifted his/her spirts at a time when they really wanted to be home with their sweethearts. For the infantryman stuck in some freezing foxhole on the line during a Korea winter, perhaps “Baby its Cold Outside” warmed his heart. Even for those who had been separated but were now home certain norms were still fondly accepted.
Give them, the WWII generation, a break; embrace a song about love and imagination from their era.
Full disclosure: It was a favorite of my in-laws. My father-in-law was one of those GIs who fought in the pacific who forever after enjoyed NOT being separated from the one he loved. My mother-in-law was an army nurse. They earned the right to viscerally understand this song.
14
As a member of the #metoo movement - I want predatory behavior (by anyone) to be taken very seriously.
Having said that - I’ve been in love, and I’ve been in the situation described in the song. And I always felt that it was up to me if I stayed - or if I went home (and sometimes it was very hard to go home!).
And in the song (which I’ve always liked, I have the Louis Armstrong and Ann Margaret recording) I have never heard or felt that “date rape” was eminent.
And even tho the lyric says “say, what’s in this drink” - I personally never heard that to be evil intent (as one who can only drink a thimble-full to feel the effects of alcohol).
Anyway - that’s my experience. To me, it feels a little bit extreme to pull it from radio stations. After all, if you don’t like the song, you can change the station. As far as I know, that’s the case with any song.
20
C Mac Best comment! Thanks!
1
This is why I have such mixed feeling about the whole #MeToo movement. On the one hand, it was a necessary outing of some long-time, repeat predatory offenders, some of them in very prominent positions.
On the other hand, when I read an article like this I find myself actually agreeing with Tucker Carlson (or whatever conservative commentator is being quoted). I cannot tell you how annoying that is.
All of this political correctness is gag-inducing on its face, but even more worrisome is the way in which many on the left so casually advocate blatant censorship because some song or movie or TV show offends their newly-sterilized views of "allowable" male and female interactions. Which come to think of it, makes them ideological bed mates with at least one person on the right - a certain VP who, I hear, won't dine alone with any woman other than his wife.
25
Thank God I'm old.
25
@Ken
copy that
1
This silliness isn't going to stop until the entire population spends it's time picking apart every single conversation, speech, lyric and remark for hidden meanings that offend the overdeveloped PC gland that hashtag groupies seem to have developed.
If you believe in a diverse world that should practice tolerance, as most PC acolytes preach, then tolerance to things that you disapprove of need a bit of tolerance as well. "Love, peace and do-your-own-thing" seems only to extend to things-that-I-approve-of. This leads to book burning, people.
Step away from the twiddle account and take a walk. You know, a real one...outside...in the fresh air. Talk to real people and you'll find most of us don't see hidden meanings in every conversation.
9
My thoughts on this echo those voiced by so many others already: I once worked for a guy who had to keep reminding me "perfection is the enemy of progress". This is a trap the progressive movement voluntarily steps into time and again. Time and again, we lose our focus on addressing contemporary issues that are destroying lives in real time. Instead, we wander off into the weeds and waste precious resources on abstractions like 80 year old songs that reflect the culture of that time. Our silliness in pursuing such missions also makes us an easy target for ridicule for those on the right. In an age of social media, that is important as we battle for the hearts and minds of less ideologically motivated middle of the road voters.
13
@Ken Tichacek
Hear hear!
My community chorus cut "To Sir With Love."
We fell into a big generation gap.
4
If we start down the road of "SI" (sexually incorrect) song lyrics, we are in for a trip with no end.
Song lyrics and attitudes mirror the society and learned ideas around us that we take for granted as true or acceptable… the background of our culture.
They're FULL of weird, unfortunate and downright harmful notions about the dynamic between women and men.
We are steeped in it.
Yes, our consciousness was raised 50 years ago by the Woman's Movement and we are able to see it more clearly and painfully in the context of today's sexual power abuses / scandals.
But, songs flow from the cultural milieu.
Leaving aside the misogyny of a lot of rap music, one can find plenty of disagreeable pop lyrics.
Early Beatles and Stones songs have cringe inducing lyrics about women when looked at in our present understanding.
Various pop songs mention shooting women.
Jealousy and belittling are everywhere.
Women are depicted as fauning and dependent or scheming - even in songs sung by women.
I pay attention to lyrics and, in the current burst of awareness, I marvel and laugh at the songs I've heard since my youth.
So, good luck with SI lyrics in pop songs.
There's no end. Best case: they are a vehicle to raising our understanding of how ingrained our destructive notions of men and women are… and how hard it is to break that.
In a pinch there's always classical music.
Just don't look too hard at the composer's sexual views or actions.
9
How ridiculous! This IS political correctness run amok. Now we are being censored by whiny individuals with an eggshell sensitivity. It is an old 1940's standard - part of the American Songbook - that we play in our house every Christmas season (Dean Martin version) along with other Christmas music. It is a normal courtship ritual, not date rape as the #MeToo misfits would call it. I suppose now men should complain about "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kit as symbolic of women's materialistic manipulation of men with the overtly sexual overtones of her alluring voice. But no - my wife and I just enjoy both songs as traditional and cute standards. Get a life #MeToo for God's sake!
14
“You have to take it in its historical and cultural context.”
I agree
Christmas radio music doesn’t provide cultural context. It’s there to passively bob your head to while you’re commuting, or shopping, or lounging on a chilly day.
I think supporters are right - at the time of the song, women had to “play hard to get,” even when they wanted to spend the night.
That’s problematic as heck! Societal views towards female sexuality have changed, and continue to change, becoming more open and less stigmatized. With modern conceptions of the importance of receiving clearly communicated consent (a change much for the better!), this song is just uncomfortable.
You’re not bad for liking the song - I like it too! But if my kids were to hear it, I feel like I’d have to have a conversation with them about it to put it in context. And I (personally) wouldn’t like to do that around Christmastime.
3
@David Clarkson
'I think supporters are right - at the time of the song, women had to “play hard to get,” even when they wanted to spend the night." How in the world do you know this?
I presume you are male, from your name. However, I do appreciate your measured response in the subsequent paragraphs. I was three years old in 1944 and I distinctly remember a neighborhood woman, who was a dear friend of the family, showing me how to make a "haymaker" in case anyone tried to hurt me. You make a fist and hit right under the chin...later, I realized a "haymaker" could be almost deadly. I was never told to be a "good little girl". In the 40s and the 50s, women have few legal options to assert themselves. But that does not mean that they played hard to get when they really meant the opposite.
I don’t know! I certainly wasn’t alive. I’m only going based on my own perceptions of the times and what other commenters defending the song have said.
From my own reading, I believe that was the authorial intent of the song - a playful depiction of the “cat and mouse” model of sexuality, where both parties are interested but don’t act like they are because it’s outside the norms of society.
Obviously not all individuals or groups in America conformed to that model or subscribed to female sexual stigmatization. But this song was only able to become a staple because that was widely subscribed to, and that’s the problem
Am I alone in realizing it's not actually so much about whether the song should or should not be played but that it's actually a great vehicle to get folks to think about consent and rape culture. Folks say "times change," which is true but only because of activism, pressure, and conversations like this one. There's an argument that the song is triggering for victims, but the reality is that critics are right there is far more offending material out there. The song is instructive because it is so widely held out as innocent rather than problematic. But I'd wager most sexual assault survivors would much rather put an end to sexual assault more than stopping this song, and forcing a national debate on this wildly popular song is a clever way to get an avoidant, dismissive nation to grapple with the idea of consent.
3
@Sean Butterfield confederate memorials are also reminders of horrible events.
1
Many comments here seem to to suggest that the reason people are uncomfortable with the song is sex.
The problem is not sex, it is is that she asks to leave four separate times, and says no very specifically and emphatically (“the answer is no”) and he keeps pushing.
The song is melodic genius but for me that isn’t enough to eclipse the reminders of situations I have been in.
How many times have women tried to make excuses about their family or friends or neighbors to justify leaving without insulting a man who is bigger than they are, more powerful physically and politically, and who is pushing and pushing and pushing.
7
I can assure you the writers weren’t envisioning a frightened women making excuses to avoid angering the big scary man. She clearly wants to stay but is worried people will gossip. That’s it. Any further interpretation is on you.
6
Why is a fictional song subject to controversy about the fictional situation it depicts and the distress its lyrics can produce on a sector of the public (assaulted women or women in general) and hiphop songs which are as, or more, offensive in terms of misogyny and aggression are not? The same arguments pro and against the fictionality of the lyrics can be invoked in hip hop as in "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (or movies or novels).
Could the real underlying issue be "Baby's" use as a Christmas song, its playing during what is supposed to be a "merry" season?
First ban all rap lyrics from the airwaves. Then tackle the Great American Songbook.
In that order.
19
@joymars Yes, lets.
1
You'd think the song would get points at least for the lyric "Mind if I move in closer," suggesting that the "oppressor" is asking permission.
9
Forget the lyrics. This song, as well as all others like it, should be banned because the song is really about a sexual predator of children. “BABY it’s cold outside”.
Claiming the song is about date rape is as stupid as the above.
8
Fer Pete's sake, this is what gives progressives and the important #MeToo movement a bad name. Whenever I've heard this song, I hear a woman who wants to stay but is worried about all the cultural and social reasons she shouldn't. There are far fouler songs out there that do cross lines. This one... Not so much and it's definitely open to interpretation as great art often is...banning it from holiday or other Playlist is political correctness run amok and just serves to feed right wing talking points about to undermine real important issues.
16
We stand on the shoulders of giants. The detractors live in a world created by the woman in the song, where such a convoluted dialogue is unnecessary. They are free to say yes and no now and so recoil from the inflection point in history where it was messy and unsafe but are mistaking the song as the aggressor itself instead of the pathfinder.
I am listening to Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton perform 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' as I type... They mention Swiss Miss to warm themselves up, shall we remove Swiss Miss from store shelves?????
In parallel: BBC, December 13, 2018 headline ''Racist' Gandhi statue removed from University of Ghana' - A statue of Mahatma Gandhi, the famed Indian independence leader, has been removed from a university campus in Ghana's capital, Accra.
University of Ghana lecturers began a petition for its removal shortly after it was unveiled in 2016 by India's former President Pranab Mukherjee.
The petition said Gandhi was "racist" and African heroes should be put first.
Who / What is next? and Why?
Stay tuned
5
Gandhi is an African hero! He formed his ideas in South Africa.
Oh, please, is this really the only thing we have to worry about? The woman is being playful and flirtatious; the guy is wooing her. There is no indication of rape in the song.
Find something else to by outraged about, like the billions in bonuses our financiers will be taking home this month as millions of homeless people freeze in the cold.
14
After the Nassar scandal, how about getting rid of "Young Girl"? Now if that one's not pedophilic, I don't know what is...
3
Haha - Gary Puckett and the Union Gap...
Oh my gosh! Look out Andrew Marvell. Soon they'll be gunning you down for, "To His Coy Mistress."
5
@Glenn Thomas My dear sir, Marvell was outed as a Queer Poet _years_ ago! so he's safe.
Pay more attention to Much Ado about Nothing, which is being rewritten for Beatrice and Betty. Also committees are scrutinizing Catullus for licence, and, as for The Satyricon, don't even go there.
2
The controversy over Baby It's Cold Outside is and excellent example of a #MeToo movement overstep or misstep. Context is everything. At the time this song became popular there was a different male/female power dynamic at work for sure. But, people were either to blind to it, accepting of it or resigned to it. The song is not trying to recruit anyone. It's just words on a page with music that was pleasant to listen to. The teachable moment for the #Me Too movement ( a worthy and heroic cause BTW) is to focus attention on real issues and avoid these types of distractions.
5
Um...really? When we're on the brink of world destruction via the disgusting criminal known as our president?
OK, then. In the lyrics, she says, "But maybe just a half a drink more..." and then "But maybe just a cigarette more.."
The genius of Loesser, there.
So, it is a song of SEDUCTION. We are still allowed that, right?
5
Oh my gosh with all the horrid rap that has has been out there for years...that they play on the radio...that children listen to...the obscene videos of those songs that have been on MTV and VH1...the nerve to find this song offensive...good for anyone continuing to sing this song and to play it on the radio...there are stations that still are...come on people think about the grossness that is still out there being played...
12
@martha34 Don't you know? Rap gets a pass.
That's basic political correctness 101.
7
I fall in with crowd that says that this song has a kind of cozy feel. Both of them are negotiating cultural barriers. Both want the same thing. He can say it. She has to play this game where nice girls don't just say yes. Anyway, that would be a very short song. He has to persuade her and assume responsibility for the transaction.
5
You can tear down statues from the past, you can take away honorary degrees given in the past, you can investigate immoral behavior from the past, and now take away musical lyrics from the past but, You simply can't erase the past no matter what you think or do.
The movement to cleanse our society and sanitize our lives is just going too far in the wrong direction.
9
@R L Donahue
I heard a history prof on NPR say, of one of the statue debates, "History doesn't care how you feel."
That stuck with me.
4
Really? People can't appreciate an old song unless it's updated to reflect current values? Does this mean that we can't listen to old Christmas carols without condemning them too? What about songs in older musicals? Will they have to be altered so as not to offend anyone?
While we're at it let's add a whole slew of books that people shouldn't be reading to the list. And let's remove Picasso, Matisse, and others from the list of great artists. Let's not forget to toss Mozart off the list of great composers.
What we're forgetting here is that every one of these things is a product of its time. We can learn a lot from "Baby It's Cold Outside" if only we'd bother listening to it. Then again, some people prefer to condemn without listening or understanding. It's so much easier that way.
8
As a product of its times, the song is nothing to be shocked about. I don't think you can fairly judge a song, a movie or other forms of entertainment outside their popular culture context.
Have we moved beyond this behavior in American culture? Not nearly far enough. Does the song bring up a chance to talk about why it's unacceptable or just fine and possibly lead to talking about today's issues? Yes. Do I like the song? Nope. I choose not to listen when it comes on the radio and skip it on CDs and Amazon playlists.
I dare say the song will last longer than a hashtag. For one, the lyrics are a conversation, albeit a tipsy one. But the lyrics don’t end with explicit sex so it is a huge cognitive leap to impose the cognitive dissonance of a hashtag with about as much grammatical sense as I don’t care do U onto anything. This is beginning to feel like an excuse for the state to intervene in consensual sex and freedom of speech. Don’t forget who holds the Executive and judicial power. It isn’t women.
Great Song with Tons of Feeling (all good). One of the few times since Star Trek that I've respected William Shatner. People are really nauseating when they get so holier than thou.
7
People are just being too literal here. It is a fun song with adult flirtation on it. I always saw it a women on the edge of liberation weighing her own choices against what others expected. If you look at all the performances of this song the women doesn't seem like she is being forced. It feels plucky. As in most artistic expressions you also have to weigh the words against the expression, that is the melody and the bodies performing. There's nuance between these...and I am female,
6
Well then, we should also ban one of the worst Christmas songs of all time, "Santa Baby". This is the one where the gold-digging woman asks Santa in a slinky, sexy voice to come down the chimney to "visit" her. Goodness, what can she possibly mean?
All in exchange for a '54 convertible, checks and a duplex among other things.
Ban the song? Oh please. I certainly don't support sexual support, but songs, movies, books, etc. are products of their times. If they upset you, ignore them. Leave it to the rest of us to enjoy them.
6
@davidwar. I don't support sexual assault I meant to say.
Wow..if this song is on the delete list, then I guess we can pretty much forget the entire Rolling Stones canon. And Led Zeppelin and...where does one stop??
Once society begins to dig the black hole of censorship it will be proven to be bottomless. Let It Be.
4
The woman keeps protesting. “I ought to say no, no, no, sir,”
So if the man sang the female lyrics and the woman sang the male lyrics would the #MeToo protesters say anything. Of course not. Their complaints are gender biased and I have nothing to do with the lyrics.
2
This is a great song and the outcry is so silly. If you agree, just say “me too.”
6
Once again the fringe dictating to everyone what is morally right or wrong. I just downloaded it from iTunes! More people should do the same. Push back! Maybe common sense can once again prevail in this country.
Merry Christmas to you ALL! Oh wait! What have I done!
8
Like many things that were accepted 70 years ago time has passed this song by. I used to think it was a harmless, flirty song until my twenty something daughter pointed out that the lyrics are about a man trying to control the woman who says "no" and is possibly doctoring her drink. This was too familiar to her from her experience in college.
1
Caution, Liberals! (Myself included.). Let’s not proclaim the puritanical nation the religious right has always wanted.
6
Zealous left isnt any different than fringe right. neither is happy until you think and act as they do, and then they're still not happy
2
Liberals have officially championed censorship. Libertarians and conservatives must unite to slow the hysteria.
5
@Johnny
Get a grip. You morally bankrupt republicans will grasp at anything to besmirch a fine liberal. These are all humans we are talking about. Not machines.
Hands off classics!
8
I object to all the Christmas songs and Christmas in General. Consider the elves. Do they have a union? Are they paid a living wage? Are they taking jobs from American workers? Do they have health care insurance? What is the trade deficit we have with the North Pole? Why are we not charging tariffs on their imports? What about the reindeer? Is flying in their job description? Do they get overtime for flying around the world for 24 hours on Christmas eve? Does Santa have a green card? We need answers to these questions before we can enjoy Christmas guilt-free.
15
@Paul Ruszczyk
That made me snort one of the marshmallows from my peppermint hot chocolate.
2
@Paul Ruszczyk
must agree ... too many important questions
somebody should look into this
1
Shatner and others are right. People who are offended by “Baby” are no doubt also offended by “Moby Dick” for being abusive to whales.
7
Context matters. The song is funny *when sung by two married entertainers in front of friends.* In such context, the ‘wolf’ and the ‘mouse’ duet is amusing because it is obviously untrue.
But the song is no longer being sung by the Loessers in front of friends. The countervailing context is lost. Worse, the changing societal context has rightfully drawn attention to the difficulty the mouse faces when telling the wolf ‘no.’ She gives excuses. But do you tell the wolf ‘for the last time no, or I call the cops’ and risk angering it. Or do you suggest your no is partly because of your sisters, your aunts and others?
To my mind, this is an easy case. The song is great and amusing in the parlor context it was written and sung, but *also* creepy and mysogynist outside of that context. *Both* views are right. Which view is more relevant *now?*
3
Exhausting over-wrought analysis.
2
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” seems to function as a Rohrschach test where commenters reveal much more about their own sex lives than about the meaning of the lyrics.
People trapped in traditional puritanical sexual guilt and exploitative relationships project similar manipulative dishonesty and female infantilization into the song.
People liberated to experience sex as natural and wholesome recognize the song’s witty marriage of true minds where a man and woman, both wanting to spend the night together, spin out a sophisticated, tongue-in-cheek cover scenario to thwart the then current viciously hypocritical cultural norms that condemned female sexual agency and desire.
16
@duke, mg
Again, a male, gives a rationale for what? Is there you "seduction" ploy? How successful are you?
And guys, before you defend the song please scroll and notice it’s mostly guys defending the song...maybe take a hint...maybe subtly is not your strong point. Maybe it’s time to listen.
2
@Maria - Please give us the statistical model utilized by you that somehow identified males, out of the 460 plus comments (at last count), that are in the majority of those who defended the song. - how long did it take you to reach this conclusion? why were women defenders excluded? do you have the breakdown of straight to gay males, for and against? can you please share your statistical model with the rest of us?
8
It's pretty unbelievable that this heartwarming holiday classic's lyrics are being put under a microscope.
Meanwhile, every "pop" station is broadcasting rap about having sex with other men's wives, using women as objects for sexual gratification, stealing, dealing drugs (have you ever actually listened to the lyrics?) ...Nobody ever says anything about it.
11
Oh for Pete’s sake, it’s about flirtation and seduction not date rape. Personally hearing Dean Martin sing it does it for me.
19
@Roseactually Deano’s version is the one I find to be most sleazy.
1
@Gaston then you didnt grow
Up with Dean Martin. He was a straightman for Jerry Lewis and a droll comic in his own right as well as a gifted actor and singer. His variety show was a huge hit at the time and he ALWAYS made fun of himself. His version reflects his droll humor. It isnt sleezy at all unless you dislike Dean Martin. That being said. The song is about booze and cigarettes and when women were being “naughty” having sex outside of marriage. Put it in context. Its bawdy humor.
1
I wish someone would write a song called "Oh, Lighten Up".
13
@J from O Priceless remark. Hilarious.
1
@J from O
Eagles did write " Get Over It " for PC folks
and of course " Tighten Up " by Archie Bell and the Drells
BTW what IS a " Drell " ?
Woman flirts wih man = no problem
Man flirts with woman = "I want to rape you"
11
What does this song have to do with Christmas? Why is it in the "Christmas Song" rotation?
@Philly Carey
If you haven't noticed yet, Christmas tends to happen when It's Cold Outside...
5
Why?
Because baby it's cold outside!
3
Frankly, I've always had more ambivalence about "Have some Madeira, my dear" than "it's cold." But in either case, the point of argument is the subtle point where seduction crosses the line into rape. The difficulty is that communicating interest is both part of the sexual "game" but communicating non-interest is also a delicate social dance. The most able men and women are able to do this with finesse, but what do the rest of us, a bit more awkward with words and non-verbal language do?
Powerful men tended to think they didn't need to seduce, that their personal, business, or cultural power was seductive enough. That's why people like Bill Cosby (and many many others) are so shocked to be accused of rape, not seduction.
Surely our culture is creative enough to evolve new ways to signal consensual interest, which can be discernible through the mists of sexual power games ---and write new songs about it. And the Loesser estate can gracefully give up the income from this song for a few years.
4
I think we are losing not only our bearings but our minds.
20
The debate about this song in my household has been amusing. There's me & my partner on one side, 70s feminists of the uncompromising variety. We love this song -- her flirtation, her token concern about social scolds, his wooing. And then on the other side are our millennial kids, boy and girl, who can't stand the song. They don't mind the flirtation but think the line about the drink is over the line because it seems to them to condone date-rape drugging.
And so the beat goes on. Many songs I liked as a teen are simply unbearable now, like "Delilah," "You Better Run for Your Life," and "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon." I don't think "Baby, It's Cold Outside" falls in that category, but standards change, and young people will take the lead in changing them. Happily, we can all love "Santa, Baby."
6
@MP unless you want to join the debate over Bublé’s version, “Santa, Buddy.”
1
@MP It might be helpful historical context for your kids if you told them the song was written before date-rape drugs were invented.
2
@MPhow bout" i saw kissing Santa Claus" Soneones goung to have to break the news to Ronnie Spector, about how,it encourages committing adultry with imaginary men witb beards who break into your house in the middle of the night on 12/25 evety year. I feel sorry for your kids.
They will never know romance.
Sure sending fowers except to sick people must be a micro infraction.
1
Good song open to all kinds of interpretation. I like the version with Miss Piggy making moves on Nureyev in the sauna from an old Muppet show.
17
Read the lyrics. The woman changes her mind from no to yes to no to yes. This is a seduction.
"Baby, It's Cold Outside"
I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside
This evening has been - Been hoping that you'd drop in
So very nice - I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
My mother will start to worry - Beautiful, what's your hurry?
Father will be pacing the floor - Listen to the fireplace roar
So really I'd better scurry - Beautiful, please don't hurry
Maybe just a half a drink more - Put some records on while I pour
The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
Say, what's in this drink? - No cabs to be had out there
I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight now
To break this spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
I ought to say no, no, no - Mind if I move in closer?
At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride?
I really can't stay - Baby don't hold out
Ah, but it's cold outside
I've got to get home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there
Say, lend me your coat - It's up to your knees out there
You've really been grand - Thrill when you touch my hand
Why don't you see - How can you do this thing to me?
There's bound to be talk tomorrow - Think of my life long sorrow
At least there will be plenty implied - If you caught pneumonia and died
I really can't stay - Get over that hold out
Ah, but it's cold outside
Oh, baby, it's cold outside
Oh, baby, it's cold outside
4
The song needs a rewrite I think? By someone more lyrically gifted than me. You might even be able to get away with just changing who sings certain lines.
Maybe it should go:
Woman: "I really can't stay, but baby, it's cold outside"
Woman: "I've got to go away"
Man: "But baby, you're right, it's cold outside"
It's like how they lost certain verses from putting on the ritz that made fun of the "high browns" for dressing up nicely. Change a few lyrics, and voila! Not racist anymore.
Note to the gender monitors: The original of this song was written by WA Mozart in 1787. It's called "Là ci darem il mano," one of the highpoints of our culture. The choreography of the aria is identical to the Frank Loesser song.
In the Loesser seduction, the woman has come over to the man's apartment... with the thought of being seduced. The "what's in this drink" line suggests she's getting turned on, not that she's passing out. I suppose trigger warnings could be announced, but leave a few seconds of dead air space for the laughter.
5
@Carling
The Mozart version comes from "Don Giovanni," a famous serial rapist in art/literature. According to his servant's counting he has "loved" 1.003 women in Spain, 600 and something in /Italy, 200 and something in Germany etc. "La ci darem il mano" is his seduction of a peasant bride in the midst of her wedding. Dona Elvira hounds him for raping her. Perhaps everyone enjoyed the opera because at the end the rapist is sent to hell by the law--the raped woman's father from the other world. Justice was done, so its ends politically correctly.
The song is clearly playful and very well done. She is expressing enjoyment and a desire to stay out on the date, but for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise, is not quite ready to do so and is keeping the romance alive while deciding to go home.
She's not saying clearly to him I don't want to stay at all, I don't want sex with you ever or I'm not enjoying this and would like to leave now.
Picking up on nuances, communicating clearly each step of the way, and being authentic during the interaction is the safest way, rather than assuming someone is not saying what she/he means.
The song is maybe a caricature and playing on stereotypes or expectations of the times, he may be annoying, but she does not sound like she's being date raped. Many women are describing what those situations feel like, and from my personal experience as well, there is a clear moment when you suddenly feel like you no longer have a choice in the outcome of the situation. It is either a physical action of some kind, or a verbal threat in response to your choice to stop/leave, and then an actual escape attempt follows if it is possible.
3
This whole thing floors me. I've always liked the song, and thought it was just a playful back and forth between a man and woman. Are we now saying that humans are not supposed to have reservations about whether they will stay or go, or that internal dialogues don't happen? This isn't about date rape, and anyone interpreting it that way, is really stretching. It's about romance.
19
Baby It's Cold is tame compared to the pedophile anthem Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
4
I don't listen to Xmas music until late December. It's still not that hard to not listen to a song you don't want to hear. I don't think this is a serious topic to care about. The re-write video did make me laugh out loud. It seemed more parody than anything.
Re-written as, "Person, It's Cold Outside, But You Should Probably Head Home, Anyway" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
10
Book burning anyone?
17
You know there's something wrong with social media when William Shatner is your go-to for cultural commentary. Twitter encourages some very lazy journalism.
3
Reminds me of Tipper Gore and Frank Zappa arguing over censorship in music. The music industry won and gave us hip hop or rap, an now have country as the new pop music. I don’t really care about the lyrics all that much. If the music moves me I’m happy. Now can someone decipher Louy Louy.
9
The schizophrenia in this country is beyond palpable. Not so long ago, Mel Brooks' (who as most know is a Jew), produced the wildly-popular musical "Springtime for Hitler". To object to a long-accepted classic kidding of merriment is missing the Trump script for reading between the lines as a diversion at home and on the world stage that is part of the Real Rape.
@Edgar Numrich I don't think Mel Brooks could make that classic, brilliant movie now. It still makes me laugh, and I'm Jewish.
1
“The #MeToo movement, which I approve of, has really overstepped in this. You have to look at things in cultural and historical context.”
Next up for #MeToo: Protests against "Sitting on the corner watching all the girls walk by." Sexist! Leads to rape! Have you listened to those words?
3
@Stephen Beard
Or the Eagles' classic "Take It Easy"
"Well I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona/such a fine sight to see/It's a girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford/slowing down to take a look at me/C'mon baby/don't say maybe/I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me".
1
and the people complaining about this song are the same ones with beyonce et al on their playlists featuring lyrics so much more vile and degrading to women. but hey, she and her husband hang with the obama's. so it's ok, right?
6
PC crowd, leave the song alone. Speak of bath water...
6
And this is why liberals/progressives attract scorn and derision. Blindly censoring everything because it's the least bit ( or a lotta bit) politically incorrect is a turn off.
5
I'm a liberal/progressive who thinks the song is a CLASSIC
3
@dmckj, I do too!
I agree with Linda -I 've always listened to the melody and the harmony of the voices without really hearing anything except "Baby it's cold outside." Funny how you can enjoy something on the surface until it starts being picked apart.
Now I appreciate the thoughts and discussion over the lyrics as they are related to a heightened awareness of a current issue. But I will continue to listen to and enjoy the music for just what it is - a pleasant mingling of instruments and voices.
But watching Ricardo Montalbon and Cyd Charisse perform it is a bit disturbing - he seems too aggressive reaching for her arm more than once (looks sort of like a grab to me). And I haven't heard anyone speak of the line "how can you do this thing to me?" You know he's not talking about a broken heart. That often seemed like a ploy by the guys that they were going to suffer some awful painful condition if they weren't accommodated. That is really creepy.
I think the song should be left on the air, but that the conversation is important and should continue.
2
@Detur Back in the day lot's of people listened to music and didn't really pay much attention to the lyrics. Quite frequently I will hear a song that I've heard for decades and it will suddenly dawn on me what they are really singing about. But I alway liked the song because it had a catchy melody or a soulful beat. The melody and the groove (or feel) is what many people find appealing.
Now we have pop music that is made by soulless computers with people shouting profanities in a "monotone". No melody and no feeling... No wonder they say this is the biggest generation gap in fifty years.
1
@Detur yes, that one line, which suggests the whine of a sexually frustrated guy who want sex, not romance, is the line that I find disturbing. Otherwise I think it’s a pretty good depiction of how women -at least women of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and even ‘70s, had ambivalent feelings about dating and sex.
After winning an important victory with consequences for Bill Cosby in the criminal justice system, and the imminent prosecution of Harvey Weinstein, policing popular entertainment from a bygone era seems below the pay grade of the #MeToo movement.
3
The orchestration, the delivery, and the oversinging, even the words (the drink was a little stronger w alcohol, not drugs--people will gossip--then, well, maybe just one more drink) combine to communicate playfulness and a game of flirtation/seduction between the man and the (willing) woman. The only "danger" here is what people will say if the woman stays late in the man's apartment.
If you don't get/hear this, fine, just don't listen. But I won't forego the enjoyment of playful, seductive games with a non-predatory male because of the behavior of males who are predatory. Go away, Victorians.
Also love Eartha Kitt's version of "Santa, Baby" without imagining that the singer is prostituting herself. Geez.
12
This seems like it is an example of losing the context of history. To me, the lyrics do not read as a refusal by the woman due to lack of interest. They read as a refusal due to concerns over the social stigma of a woman expressing her sexuality by staying the night with a man outside of marriage. I think the key line is "I ought to say no, no no...", with an emphasis on the "ought".
You could just as easily pitch these lyrics as being progressive for the time; a flirtatious dialogue, about 15 years before the full wave of the sexual revolution.
I am almost certain the religious community at the time condemned the song - and I can guarantee not because of assault concerns, but because it "encouraged" sex.
I can see the concern from the other side; when its time, I'm going to teach my girls how to emphatically say "no". But if my girls ever ask out "Baby It's Cold Outside", I plan on using the song to explain how much better life is now that women don't live behind ankle length skirts and socially imposed curfews anymore (or at least less than they did).
7
I am sorry for those who want to call this a date rape song. I am sorry they have such a poor misunderstanding of human interactions about sex. Have these people also thrown out their bibles for all the misogynistic tendencies and actual rape scenarios? But my favorite song to laugh at will always be Tom Jones' "She's a Lady". Now there are some lyrics to laugh at. And fun to sing at the same time.
6
@Linda Jean
Just read the lyrics to "She's a Lady"... Yeah they are kind of goofy and maybe a little sexist but so what.
It's a great song because it has a great melody and a great vocal performance and it makes you want to move your feet when you hear it. And the girls thought he was really sexy.
@Linda Jean These lyrics?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MldsqKGnLA
Have you noticed that Santa smokes a pipe and is overweight?
9
I'm surprised as to why more people have not mentioned rap, which advocates violence against women, including degradation and humiliation. But then again, violence has always trumped sex. No pun intended.
8
@Nicole ... are you really surprised that no one has mentioned rap? It's performers get a pass.
2
I read the woman's voice in this song as somebody who truly wants to stay, but has many external reasons - socially imposed ones - and after faintheartedly trying to cite those, happily overrides them to achieve her own desire.
8
And if the lyrics were sung by a woman to another woman? It would be considered a breakthrough moment in American musical culture.
Next is calling out those bully's who make fun of Rudolf's red nose.
14
I've been listening to a local radio station that runs old programs like the original "Our Miss Brooks" and "Sherlock Holmes'. They are fun to listen to but I'm always shocked at how sexist the commercials are.
Do we really need "Baby it's cold outside" as a holiday song? There are plenty that aren't sexist. Let it go onto the trash heap where "Little Black Sambo" and other racist/sexist things go to die.
It's a new world - whether the good old religious boys like it or not.
1
I still think that the Rock Hudson/Mae West version (available on youtube) is the best version. Never felt it was a Christmas song.
1
The outrage! This? Perhaps holding children in holding camps? Silently condoning an American paper's correspondents dismemberment? Destroying absentee ballots in North Carolina? Power grabs in Wisconsin and New Jersey? Nope. What was I thinking?
10
@sonofzeppo
I question your commitment to caring about what seems most important.
Such issues as investigating why a 7 yr old died of dehydration in a lock up for migrants among a zillion of other important issues is far less important than worrying about this song.
Sometimes, being a liberal and approving for the most part #METOO becomes a chore in learning tolerance for those who think this is of major importance.
So let's get this clear, Baby it's Cold Outside is too problematic to play, but rap is totally ok?
16
@ChrisW
Wait...
Rap is played at church Christmas parties?
Rap writers are offended when listeners discover their lyrics are about rape?
1
Amazing compared with Rap music. My 15 year old listens to Rap constantly... and it's beyond cringe. But the Left doesn't seem to criticize Rap? Why? Double standards, and yes, I am clutching my pearls. Free speech used to be an American value.
13
@Jason McDonald Of Course Liberals (of which I am one on several selected issues, but not this on) would never criticize rap as that would be SO racist and politically incorrect. Disgusting - there should have been an 11th Commandment against Hypocrisy. Meanwhile, I'm writing my Christmas list for Santa Baby!
1
Like so many historical artifacts -from Folgers Coffee ads of the ‘60s to Bill Cosby- this song has just not aged well. It can certainly be modified or performed in such a way to make it less offensive, but to the modern listener it is just a creepy song no matter what. Times change and so do cultural norms. I can appreciate it as a piece of history, but it’s difficult to enjoy listening to a song that’s more than borderline rapey.
2
With all of the obscene and violent songs out there, this (I think, benign) one gets picked on? Aren't there more important things to get up in arms about? It's campaigns like this by the Politically-Correct Police that drive some people to the likes of Trump and his flagrant crudeness.
8
what's creepy is all the moral and social arbitration...toss this tune for a gender gripe, rewrite stuff that makes students feel excluded and unsafe (87 an easier lift than "four score and seven")...denature everything but the kool aid.
1
This debate is beyond silly. I certainly acknowledge abuse of women is real and intolerable, starting with the fake POTUS' cavalier attitudes. But the "me too" movement is pushing the envelop too far and I for one am losing sympathy. This is an innocent, fun, song about flirting. Period.
10
The overly sensitive PC mob is upset about this song? Oh, please. They should take a long, hard look at rap music lyrics.
12
I still say people make a huge mistake when one conflates historic norms based on present mores and ideology.
8
I can't believe it! I never thought it would happen! I agree with Tucker Carlson about something. When libs overstep like this, it does nothing for their cause - it just fuels up outrage on the other side. Let go of the past folks.
2
This “problem” is easily solvable. Someone should record an instrumental version with no vocals, and that version should be the one played. We all get to enjoy the wonderful melody without the offending lyrics.
Next cultural dilemma, please.....
2
This is the intellectual equivalent to PETA trying to make "Feed a fed horse." work.
3
Here's a 19th-century version, written by a lyricist named von Zuccalmaglio and set to music by Brahms:
He:
Good to see you, my sweet,
good to see you, my dear!
I’ve come with love in store,
so open up the door,
open up the door!
She:
Oh my door is locked tight
and I can’t let you in.
Mother gave good advice:
if I should treat you nice,
I’d be done for then!
He:
So cold is the night,
so icy the wind,
I’ll freeze without a doubt,
my love will flicker out.
Open up, my love!
She:
Let your love flicker,
and let it go out!
When all your coals are dead
then go on home to bed!
So good night, my boy!
Songs move along with the times.
1
Political correctness gone crazy, imho. If the song offends you do not listen to it! I never listen to Grandma got run over by a reindeer because the song offends me. Turn the channel and move on, this is a giant non-issue.
5
@Art Hohlflaffer
You can't not listen to the songs played in stores without leaving the store.
This is such PC nonsense. I always felt that the woman in the song was in on the “concern” but wanted to be playful.
2
Unfortunately, the loudest objections to this song diminish the important messages of the #metoo movement. Many songs - many works of art - are filled with messsages that may offend the sensibilities of some. In a free society one of the purposes of art, including popular song, is to provoke the audience.
Just as one might choose not to revere the Beatles or Rolling Stones (rock in general seems to have depended on blatant sexism), we are free to eliminate Baby It's Cold Outside from our popular culture oeuvre by not listening to it.
Do we really want to censor lyrics,or put Tipper Gore-like warnings on recorded music? We are adults; let's behave that way.
3
I think this is just ridiculous. How about "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" Frosty depicted without pants and smoking a pipe, objections to Ho, Ho, Ho, and why does no one care that Grandma got run over by a reindeer."
If each objector (myself included) used the time and energy to fight for justice for a little 7-year-old girl who died of dehydration in an immigration detainment center, we might begin to do something right!
7
Date Rape is a very serious problem and squirrelly digging into what was interpreted in a very different way than today clouds the issue. It amounts to an unnecessary distraction from a serious matter.
Let it go!
It's hard to believe that this article mentioned several parodies of "Baby It's Cold Outside" without including Key and Peele's excellent version, "Just Stay the Night". Aside from being hilarious, it almost plays out like an instruction manual on how to handle piggy, self-entitled males with no respect for women. In fact, the video should've been shown at the Kavanaugh hearings. Who knows, we might have seen a different outcome!
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/btjecx/key-and-peele-just-stay-for-the-night
3
While we're on the subject of banning Christmas songs, how about 'All I Want for Christmas is You'?
While I support the MeToo movement, no thanks to "PC," now there really is a "War on Christmas," and the word "snowflake" can get a temporary pass for use as a pejorative.
Nothing like a little holiday jeer, right?
Seasons Greetings!
1
Can I still listen to "I Want To Hold Your Hand"?
3
This song has always been ‘the rape song’ - in our house. Is that too much? Is being aware since I was a young girl that a casual dismissal of my no is a warning sign I should heed? It’s kept me safe, so I’d say no.
this is utterly and positively ridiculous.
what's next, outlawing sex?
men and women like each other, that is how the species continues. If we could accept simple biological facts, instead of constantly moralizing, we might evolve.
2
In 1949, I saw the movie Neptune's Daughter with Ricardo Moltbaten and Esther Williams and Moltabatn sang that song to her.
That it is news today makes me wonder about Americans who should be worried about a zillion things more important.
5
It is strange that “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” has escaped the contemporary cultural critical examination. I always thought the lyrics were bizarre for a Xmas song lol.