Baby It’s Cold Outside is one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time. It has been recorded literally dozens of times since it was first published almost one hundred years ago. Everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Buble has put their touch on it.
Recent readings of the song’s lyrics have identified phrases that strike an uncomfortable chord with modern sensibilities. Is the song an outdated, problematic mess, or a carefree Christmas jingle that you can safely listen to in the background while you play Bodog Poker in Canada? To understand the song, you need to consider the historical context.
History
Baby It’s Cold Outside was written by Frank Loesser in 1944. Loesser was well known at the time for having written the music for several popular musicals—including Guys and Dolls. The song was originally written as something of a joke.
He and his wife would perform it at the end of a party as a gentle, humorous way of telling their guests it was time to leave. They became locally famous for their performances, with Loesser claiming that the song earned them invitations to more parties than anything else he had ever done in his life.
The couple would go on performing the song at social outings for years until Loesser decided in 1949 that the tune could have commercial value. The song was included in the film Neptune’s Bounty, where it quickly gained popularity with a wider audience, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The rest is history. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin both recorded popular versions of the song in the mid-twentieth century, and it has since been taken up by a long string of popular recording artists.
Up until relatively recently, the song was never met with controversy.
Why do people take issue with Baby It’s Cold Outside?
At face value, it tells the story of a woman who wants to leave but is being pressured to stay by a man who likely has a very specific idea of how he would like to keep her warm.
Throughout the song, she gives him many reasons why it is time to leave, and he brushes them all off—making the ever-pertinent point that it is cold outside.
Obviously, this kind of persistence doesn’t sit well with an audience that has been—rightly—trained to prioritize consent.
There are also several specific lines in the song that make people uncomfortable—the most notorious of them—Say, what’s in this drink? Obviously, a scenario in which a man is pressuring a woman to stay in his house after she has explained she wants to leave—while giving her a drink with uncertain contents—is incredibly dark and justifiably controversial.
However, that’s not the whole story.
What was Frank Loesser Getting At?
First of all, it’s important to understand that societal expectations were very different in 1944 than they are today. While most people wouldn’t bat an eye at a woman staying over at a man’s house after a late night, the public reaction might have been very different in a war-era America.
The neighbors really might think, and there is a good chance that her father was pacing the floors. A woman in 1944 would be expected to reject a man’s blatant advances. The fact that she is participating in the flirty conversation suggests not a resistance to him, but rather to the unfair social standards that she is being held to.
At least I’m going to say that I tried.
The woman is actively developing a story that will allow her to justify her behavior to anyone who might question it. The suggestion—and probably intention—is that she wants to be there, but also that she lives in a time where it wouldn’t be proper to come right out and say as much.
And what of the song’s most controversial line? Say what’s in this drink was an expression at the time. The playful insinuation is that they didn’t realize they were drinking alcohol.
There are still uncomfortable aspects of the song. The male role was labeled as “The Wolf,” by Loesser himself, which isn’t exactly an ideal relationship archetype. Still, to describe Baby It’s Cold Outside, as a song about a woman falling victim to a man is to ignore the historical context.
Conclusion
On Netflix, there is a Christmas movie called Love Hard, in which the film’s couple sings an updated version of Baby It’s Cold Outside.
It goes like this:
I really can’t stay
No problem there’s the door
I’ve got to go away
I hear ya, say no more
This evening has been
Totally consensual
So very nice
I hope you get home safe tonight
Even if the original song isn’t problematic in the way that some modern listeners think it is, this version has a nicer ring to it.
