Yes, it’s that time of year: holly, mistletoe, fruitcakes, eggnog, premature Christmas music—and the carping of Authoritarian Leftists who want to ban the song “Baby it’s cold outside” for its supposed lack of affirmative sexual consent.
Here are two older articles from the Washington Post and Vox explaining why the outrage brigade demonizes the song. In short, “Baby it’s cold outside” is rape-y and sexually malevolent, and even implies that a woman’s drink was spiked (it wasn’t). Click on the screenshot to read more—if you don’t already know the story.
From that Post report:
The piano notes, the crooning voice — it’s unmistakably “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” And how does that make you feel?
Icky, we’re guessing. The Christmas song that has been a romantic classic for decades is becoming notorious for being creepy at best, encouraging of date rape at worst. The lyrics haven’t changed; the female role in the duet has always been singing “the answer is no” as the man pressures her to stay. But society’s evolving views on the prevalence of rape, especially between non-strangers, has pushed criticism of a Christmas classic into the mainstream.
Vox, surprisingly, gives a more balanced take, giving the pro and con arguments for considering the song misogynistic and even dangerous:
But this controversy continues yearly, for social-justice outrage is ever busy and needs feeding, and won’t rest until everything considered ideologically impure is banned.
Below is a piece from Entertainment Weekly reporting that station WDOK in Cleveland, Ohio just banned the song from its week-long 24-7 Christmas rotation (who can stand incessant Christmas music?) because, as radio host Desiray emphasized, “People might say, ‘oh, enough with that #MeToo,’ but if you really put that aside and listen to the lyrics, it’s not something I would want my daughter to be in that kind of a situation. The tune might be catchy, but let’s maybe not promote that sort of an idea.” (Another announcer echoes those sentiments in the station’s blog post.)
Eleven months ago, I examined the controversy brewing at that time, and posted the entire song. You should listen to the whole thing (the roles get reversed) and read the Persephone Magazine piece below before you pass judgment. As I said before posting the original movie version and the new sanitized version:
Here’s the original version of the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. The first half shows Betty Grable and Ricardo “Corinthian Leather” Montalban; the second Red Skelton and Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. The song was written by Frank Loesser in 1944, was sung by him and his wife at parties, and first appeared in this movie: “Neptune’s Daughter” (1949):
As you probably know, this song has been strongly criticized for showing sexual malfeasance, though people apparently haven’t seen the role reversal that starts at 2:27. Well, women can be domineering too, but I can see why this song would raise a lot of hackles were it recorded today. (Lady Gaga is apparently complicit.) Given the symmetry of roles, and the fact that it’s older than I am, I can’t get very worked up about it, though.
Why doesn’t the second part, showing sexual symmetry, ever get mentioned in the ubiquitous calls for banning? I don’t think it’s because women are seen as rape-y. But read on about the mores of the time.
The humorless earnestness and heavy-handedness of the Control-Left is absolutely evident from the revised and bowdlerized version published by The Current. As I wrote:
The consent-friendly version below, however, is the response of 2018. Rather than just pointing out the difficulty of negotiating an acceptable sexual relationship in these fraught times, people go back and rewrite the past. This rewrite makes me absolutely cringe, not because of the need for “affirmative consent”, with which I agree, but because it’s so heavy-handed with the virtue—and not humorous to boot. Yes, we get it! We don’t need to be beat over the head with a ball peen Virtue Hammer. (Note: the site says a portion of the proceeds will be donated to good causes; I think they should donate all the proceeds.)
“How about The Cheesecake Factory?” Really?
But if you want the definitive refutation of this song as rape-y, read the piece below, written by Slay Belle (click on screenshot) and published at Persephone Magazine. Read it for yourself; it’s summarized below in a series of tweets by comedian and writer Jen Kirkman. 
A short excerpt:
If we look at the text of the song, the woman gives plenty of indication that she wants to stay the night. At the time period the song was written (1936), “good girls,” especially young, unmarried girls, did not spend the night at a man’s house unsupervised. The tension in the song comes from her own desire to stay and society’s expectations that she’ll go. We see this in the organization of the song — from stopping by for a visit, to deciding to push the line by staying longer, to wanting to spend the entire night, which is really pushing the bounds of acceptability. Her beau in his repeated refrain “Baby, it’s cold outside” is offering her the excuses she needs to stay without guilt.
Let’s look at the lines. As she’s talking about leaving, she never says she doesn’t want to stay. Her words are all based around other people’s expectations of her — her mother will worry, her father will be pacing the floor, the neighbors will talk, her sister will be suspicious of her excuses and her brother will be furious, and my favorite line that I think is incredibly revealing, — “My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious.” Vicious about what? Sex. Unmarried, non-good girl having, sex.
Later in the song, she asks him for a comb (to fix her hair) and mentions that there’s going to be talk tomorrow – this is a song about sex, wanting it, having it, maybe having a long night of it by the fire, but it’s not a song about rape. It’s a song about the desires even good girls have.
. . . The song, which is a back and forth, closes with the two voices in harmony. This is important — they’ve come together. They’re happy. They’re in agreement. The music has a wonderfully dramatic upswell and ends on a high note both literally and figuratively. The song ends with the woman doing what she wants to do, not what she’s expected to do, and there’s something very encouraging about that message.
A precis in tweets:
Can’t we go back to the good old days when the Left was unified in waging its “War on Christmas”?
Yeah, remember the good ol’ days, when alongside our coffe overlords, we launched evil attacks on xmas with plain red disposable coffee cups and telling people “Happy Holidays”…Archie Bunker was right. Those were the days!
*coffeE. Damn autocorrect, or in this case, lack there of.
Sprightly tune, odious words. It’s amazing how many of the old standards are set to words whose implications, or in fact stated meanings, leave us at least a little bit nauseous. Autre temps, autre moeurs. Those of us who lived in those days, grew up with those songs (I was born in 1940) are appalled, looking back, at the crap we swallowed whole. Let’s write new words, if the music merits them, let’s just play the music, or — here’s a suggestion — let the rock musicians sing them. I haven’t understood the words of rock music since the heyday of the Rolling Stones
Odious does not begin to describe it. And not just by today’s standards. It has been called the Christmas Date Rape Song.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=christmas%20date%20rape%20song
I don’t think date rape drugs were around whenn it was written (1944) but this lyric is just horrible –
“Say, what’s in this drink”
Guess who didn’t read the whole of the post before they commented?
[/sarcasm]
cr
Jerry presents several arguments to support the notion that these lyrics are not odious. Why should I side with your opinion and not his?
Full disclosure: I don’t know this particular Christmas song.
Actually, rereading the headline, I’d nominate another old song for the creepiest classic. It’s ‘Witchcraft,’ which manages to excuse male horniness by shifting all the responsibility to the woman’s ‘witchcraft’…
You arouse the need in me…
What you’re leadin’ me toooh…
Check the lyrics online.
I originally thought ‘The Girl that I Marry’ was the creepiest, but learned that it was written as a specific satire on the attitude it depicts. Check the lyrics on this one, too, but note that it comes from ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ whose heroine is the opposite of all the qualities in it.
I was listening to a band play Just Like A Woman by Dylan live last night…’she breaks just like a little girl’ raised a few eyebrows among the people unacquainted with it.
The band also played Under My Thumb by the Stones and Run For Your Life by The Beatles…
I would allow this one
I’m sorry, Kirkman’s defense of the song really isn’t. It’s contrived and a waste of space.
I cringe when watching that video–yes the whole thing. I recall how I tried to play that game when I was young and it never worked well for me (and, I suspect many other women). I recall how the power dynamic was always on the man’s side.
In both parts of the video someone is grabbing the other person–it’s more overt in Montalban’s side.
There’s another issue with the two scenes, whey didn’t the studio put Betty Grable (seen as a sex symbol) in the begging role and Betty Garrett (a comedian not typically portrayed as “sexy”) in the resisting role? The counter scene is meant to be comedic and what’s more comedic than a woman acting this way? (Or what was more comedic at the time?)
It doesn’t really matter if she actually WANTED to stay and was just making excuses (I really doubt she was planning to stay–she hadn’t taken off her wrap). Montalban grabs her, he blocks her way. This is real, it really happens to women. It’s a winning game for men and often was a losing game for women. This sort of thing is all too real in dating (I suspect it still is–I have a teenage daughter and hope not). And the games harmed women much more than men.
I truly want slut shaming to go away, but holding up this song as anything more than a man trying to “win” sex from a woman is ludicrous. I used to think the song was cute too, it took me a long time to wake up to see it wasn’t.
Because this cute song requires waaaay too much explanation to make it palatable–to our daughters and sons–it should probably be dropped from holiday playlists.
Yes, the whole vintage “your lips say no no, but there’s yes yes in your eyes” trope may occasionally be true, but it definitely gives an underlying message: guys, don’t take “no” for an answer. It’s creepy at best. This particular song pushes it hard. I think it’s not much of a stretch to say it hasn’t aged well.
Another example of old-fashioned Romance which can’t stand up to modern mores is the Rogers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel” and the way it justifies wife beating. When you love someone and they hit you, you don’t even feel it, the wise main character realizes. Just, no.
+1
I’ve found it challenging to watch a lot of older movies and plays, read books and listen to older songs with my daughter and not turn it into a discussion about how we’ve changed (or how things need to change).
At 15, my daughter has gotten tired of those discussions and I feel she’s at such an impressionable stage in her growth. I only hope that she heard me all along. I hope that, unlike her mother, she wouldn’t consider “Baby it’s cold outside” socially educational.
Don’t need to go back quite that far, either. Tough to put an anodyne spin on the tune written by (then) husband-and-wife team Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and recorded by the Crystals, “He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss).”
Great tune, horrible lyrics.
Wasn’t it about a woman caught in an abusive relationship though, so in a sense it’s a condemnation of domestic violence?
King and Goffin wrote it about the R&B singer Little Eva (of “Loco-Motion” fame), who was babysitting for them at the time, and said something along those lines when they asked her about a bruise on her face, is my understanding of the song’s provenance anyway.
“Liliom is a 1909 play by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. It was well-known in its own right during the early to mid-20th century, but is best known today as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel.” — Wikipedia
1909 Europe: that’s what/when I think of when I think about women’s equality.
/s
Would be nice if these leftists spent their time at least trying to make the world better. Guess that doesn’t give them the same rush as senseless attacks on the trivial.
we are and this isn’t trivial. My entire early life was spent trying to play along with the games that would “get me a husband”. It was expected of me–even if I was also expected to have a career.
I was not the type of girl who could give in, like Grable does in the end, because the cost of giving in damaged me more than it damaged a beauty like her.
Sorry, if you have a daughter, or even know any young woman, this isn’t at all trivial.
Just so I get the idea across more clearly. I did give in and it damaged my reputation totally.
That’s really interesting. It would good to document this (and compare and contrast with the modern versions). The common wisdom on the left is that these things no longer exist, or exist as a fucntion of the “patriarchy” which seems unidimensional to me and denies the reality of female-female competition. Do have more detail you could supply please?
I’m not sure I fully get your point.
But the “left” (shall I simply say humanists?) is still fighting this sort of thing as far as I can tell.
I suppose there is some sort of female-female “competition” at issue, but it still came down to men to decide if a woman was a “suitable” partner. If a woman was beautiful, that beauty seemed enough to forgive many other ills–like a lack of chastity.
Back to my original comment above; Betty Garrett was a comedian and her version of the scene makes her appear desperate and pushy and the guy’s not at all interested (even though Skelton certainly wasn’t the sex symbol Montalban was). So this song illustrated how desirable it was when a woman played “hard to get”.
Sure, the song shows nothing good about the entire dating game, it’s denigrating to both men and women, but it’s probably more “harmful” to women in the long run because of good girl/bad girl attitudes in society.
A female friend recently told me how completely unfathomable the power asymmetry is in sexual relations unless you put yourself in the mind of a woman; 99% of the men you ever meet will be significantly stronger and bigger than you. There will almost never be a situation in which you would be safe fighting back. Of course a high percentage of men will be kind and decent too, and wouldn’t dream of hurting a woman, but the disparity in size and power is a constant background issue with a lot of the women I know. They don’t complain about it, they almost never bring it up, but it’s still there in the back of their minds, and for most of human history it has been completely normal to just wallop a woman about a bit if she gets on your nerves. It’s stil common on the majority of the earth’s surface.
I’m currently living underneath the most odious creep, a guy who attacked me in the street outside our flat on one of his regular paranoiac speedfreak binges, and who has repeatedly beaten his previous girlfriends so badly they had to go into hiding. He’s not even particularly big or muscly, but none of the luckless women who get tricked into relationships with him would dare to fight back.
If men could grasp just a little of the sense of physical vulnerability, the asymmetry in power, that exists between the genders I don’t think we’d be quite so dismissive of articles like this as ‘outrage culture’, as though women are just looking for something to have a good time complaining about. (The asymmetry in power is also a good explanation for why the role-reversal half way through is pretty much irrelevant.)
Personally I would have dropped the song from my radio playlist only because I think it’s such an awful twee piece of musical wrapping paper, so I don’t know how I feel about the station not playing it. I’m probably against them dropping it without some audience-driven reason, but this kind of quiet sidelining of certain songs/films/tv shows happens all the time, and has been happening for the last forty years.
As for the article cited, it seems reasonable, and the explanation for the line ‘what’s in this drink?’ given by the song’s apologists strikes me as deeply unconvincing. It’s just a creepy song. I don’t think it should be banned – I don’t think anything much should be banned – but one radio station removing it from its playlist and a pretty reasonable article about the song being creepy doesn’t strike me as reason to get ‘outraged’ in return.
+1 a million times
+2
And thanks.
I’m dreading the day the Outrage Brigade discovers the old Sean Connery James Bond movies. There’ll be hell to pay.
I fear more for Pepe LePeau. Though at least he was the butt of the joke.
Wow, when Pepe takes a shot, what could be next. My wife’s Pepe LePeau watch will probably be recalled.
The little stinker will have his publicist issue an apology and announce he’s gone into rehab.
One of my favorite movies is Its a Wonderful Life. In the lead up to the famous scene where Jimmy Steward is about to jump off a bridge he’s driving so plastered drunk he drives off a road into a tree. I guess drunk driving is not high on the list for social outrage.
The drunk driving is supposed to be shocking and sad, not cute or funny.
Thank you Sastra.
If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it. That’s how I deal with current pop, rap, hip hop, and what they claim is country music these days. I turn it off. Simple, yes, but effective. If I hear that dreadful christian band with that song about a little boy buying shoes for his dead mother, I turn that sh*t right off. Easy peasy. Why this incessant crusade to intervene in other people’s lives? Why can’t everybody else leave everybody else alone?
I’m not sure you have appreciated how tough it is for people caught in a piety spiral. They orbit in every decreasing circles until they disappear up their own…inter-sectionality
Those spirals get tight enough, they just might end up flying up their own fundament, like the Oozlum bird.
Quiet true. Being as shy and socially anxious as I am, I struggle greatly to comprehend the motives behind much of what people do. I can appreciate that people may have different interpretations of song lyrics than I do (I am a Dylan fan, after all) and I can recognize that as music is art, and art is subjective, meanings and impacts may differ. What I don’t get is why people think that only they have the correct interpretation and only they have the right to decide who gets to do/hear/see/read/eat/wear/think. I acknowledge their feelings, their POV, is it too much to ask them to acknowledge mine?
I echo that, 100%. The amount of crap I don’t listen to is astronomical.
cr
Yes. I’d like to watch “Song of the South” again but apparently it’s not PC now for N America. Although Disney still sells it elsewhere.
Couldn’t you find it on YouTube in twenty seconds?
The most important lyric, which occurs within the first two verses is this one: “I ought to say no, no, no sir. At least I’m gonna say that I tried.”
She’s GONNA SAY that she tried. The only reason she’d have to say that she tried is if she stayed, and she is GONNA SAY that. Because she had made up her mind, before the song even began, that she was going to stay.
That doesn’t require “waaaay too much explanation to make it palatable”. It’s about as basic as can be even with even a cursory knowledge of the context.
What really isn’t palatable is people listening to a classic piece of music* and having a gut reaction to it and then expecting everyone else to conform to that reaction. No one else is allowed to listen to it! Get it off the radio! It’s more domineering than the man in the song by the worst interpretation.
*An aside: Who just listens to the lyrics of a song without the context, music, and emotion it’s performed with? That’s like reading the dialogue in a movie and cutting away the rest of the scene–the background, the acting, the setting.
For example, if you saw this dialogue:
Person 1: “Come over here.”
Person 2: “Okay.”
Person 2 walks out of the room without coming over.
You might think, “How rude! Person 2 said she’d to come over and then just left!”
But now add the context:
Person 1: “Come over here,” said Person 1, while holding her finger up to her lips and then pointing frantically toward the door.
Person 2: “Okay,” said Person 2, pointing to herself and then over to the door. Person 1 nodded.
Person 2 quickly left the room…
Anyone who would argue that Person 2 was rude to leave after hearing the context and saying, “You’re over-analyzing the story to justify the dialogue,” would be regarded as silly, right?
That’s what’s happening with this song. Everyone wants to cut out all the things that make it romantic so they can be all cold on it because they found something “wrong” with the lyrics. Well, no. Context matters. The tone and warmth of the song matters. The fact that it was written by a man to perform with his wife and his wife loved it matters. She consented. The women in the song consented. Period.
Oops! The woman* (and the women who’ve performed it since and acted as that woman) in the song consented
For casual listeners, and young people learning social and dating skills, that is a lot of explanation.
The thing about reviewing it in context, when viewed as a film clip, the lack of consent at the grabbing is one thing, and the looks she gives add another.
Then if you simply listen to the audio, you can see it quite differently–consent isn’t an issue, just reminders of how silly these games worked.
As far as I’m aware, radio isn’t a visual medium. And I sincerely doubt that even 1% of people young enough that they’re still learning how to socialize have ever seen the visuals.
Regardless, it’s hard to argue that a single song will somehow convince them that rape is ok, or that sex doesn’t require consent, etc. It’s a “think of the children” argument.
I don’t know the context of the song, but to me, the mere fact that she is on his territory implies that she has consented.
To my mind, this song reflects a time before reliable birth control and safe, legal abortions when women really had to be cautious about non-marital sex.
I don’t like the song and would give it a thumbs down on Pandora, but I don’t think protesting it is a worthwhile use of time.
There was a lot more to it than pregnancy. To have sex was to damage the commodity, the commodity that men desired in a bride. Pregnancy simply made that damage VERY visible. But even without it, gossip did it just fine.
Even though I grew up in the 70’s, this was what I learned and was taught in overt and covert ways.
That’s true, but if you trace those concerns back to their biological roots, I think the genesis is men’s uncertainty over paternity — the source of many of the fears patriarchal societies have regarding female sexuality.
You’ll excuse the mansplain. 🙂
I agree with the explanation, but it’s not a good reason for it to have continued so long. It seems bizarre that in the age of film we still had this issue (and that we still have it now).
To me, it’s a form of honor culture – how not just the woman’s honor and reputation is at stake if she is sexually active before marriage, but the honor and reputation of her family as well. The composer of the song is drawing on this – with his references to potential negative reactions of the woman’s mother, father, brother, sister and maiden aunt (who, of course is the flip side, being a lonely spinster who nobody wanted to marry – she’s the most vicious of all).
As late as 1981, when I got my first job and apartment, I was told by a woman who grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that I was particularly brave to do such a thing. When I asked what she meant, she said that when she grew up in the 1960s, only girls who didn’t care about their reputations had their own apartments. Implying that I didn’t care about my reputation, like I was some kind of proto-whore. I remember my feeling of being shocked at such an insinuation.
At least on the young woman having-her-own-apartment front, those days are blissfully over.
As for the song, I’ve got mixed feelings about it, the way I have mixed feelings about some religious art. I can admire an artist’s talent and execution, but have mixed feelings about the theme of a work.
As for not listening to the song – I heard it the other day while shopping. Like so much Christmas music, it’s everywhere this time of year and difficult to entirely avoid.
We have come a long way, haven’t we?
I got the same many, many times when I purchased a place in 1985 or so, then again in 1999 in a small town in North Carolina. It was a big deal that I wasn’t waiting to buy until I got married (I’m glad I didn’t wait, I’d still be renting!).
A lot of this ended when I had a child (as a single person) but now the main assumption is that I’ve been divorced–which makes me more “legitimate” somehow.
I’d never seen the updated version, though I’d read various negative descriptions, but I decided to watch it this time. I was pleasantly surprised, because it struck me as deliberately funny— the woman wants to stay, but the man keeps agreeing that yes, she ought to go. She’s fishing for a protest. Can’t get one anymore: we made them too considerate.
Now, given the intent of the remake and the date they make at the end, I probably misinterpreted it. Though it’s a common enough situation even without any sexual tension. “Oh, this is so fun, but I don’t want to intrude, I suppose I really ought to get going …” “Okay! I’ll run and get your coat!”
If you want to be mean (and blow their tiny inter-sectional minds) then post Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan’s version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuCO7Kq744U
Oh noes! It’s black people singing the forbidden song…we can’t criticise them because it would be punching down…(that’s why we dont target the rampant misogyny in rap) but its “clearly” (for a given SJW defnition of “clear”) about sexual coercion…whatever shall we do? Arrg! Caught in the agony of racism of low expectations!
(Like I dont know what they will do–go after the identity of the poster)
Nailed it. (I am, of course, referring to your post…)
I like there is this second part, where the woman is the ‘predator’ and the man plays ‘hard to get’. Isn’t that what real equality is meant to produce?
Must say the first part appeared a bit ‘rapey’ indeed, although many have pointed out that the lady was probably more weary of opprobrium, of what others would think, than not feeling like staying.
The ‘cheesecake version’ is clearly meant as parody. Very funny, IMMO.
The problem with the second part is that it’s all comedy. He’s not remotely interested–he’s not even playing the game. The mirror image is a shattered version.
Yes, I guess, sadly.
Almost all art, to some extent, plays with emotions that are already currently alive in the culture. They manipulate, often by exaggeration, the emotions to represent them in a new and interesting way. So, if sexual relationships and the emotions they encompass are enriched by a musician, poet, film maker, or painter, they are quite often bound to push the boundaries for some part of the audience. But that’s what art is all about. That’s why we can say art enriches life.
Nude classical sculpture and paintings were “dressed” in medieval times to fit the sensitivities of the times. Appending a fig leaf to a classic like “Baby it’ Cold Outside”, is a loss for humanity.
Well, I would agree the Bing & Gary Crosby version should be banned. How could they not see how creepy that was?
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” is, in a way, cringeworthy today, but I seriously doubt it’s worth banning or protesting.
You want creepy? Try “Nuttin’ for Christmas,” the video:
(It’s the ending that’s creepy.)
Actually, the melody to “Nuttin’ for Christmas” is reminiscent of the German folk song, “Ich bin der Doktor Eisenbart”:
Ich bin der Doktor Eisenbart,
Zwili-vili-vitt-bumm-bumm …
Kurier die Leut nach meiner Art
Zwili-vili-vitt-bumm-bumm …
Kann machen dass die Blinden geh’n
Zwili-vili-vitt-bumm-bumm-bumm-bumm …
Und DASS die Lamen wieder seh’n!
Zwili-vili-vitt-bumm-bumm …
It’s a folk song, and many slightly different variations exist, esp. for the singing/reading of the line with the emphasized DASS. I could not find a Youtube version that satisfied me.
Corrections:
1) The NON-chorus melody is what’s similar to the folk song.
2) Zwili-vili-vitt should be Zwili-wili-witt because German “w” = English “v”, which was how it was sung when I heard it. German “v” = English “f”, which doesn’t work.
Okay, I think I’m done now.
‘Tis but a storm in a teacup.
Favorite holiday tune is Santa Baby by the inimitable Eartha Kitt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk_GmhD053E
I’ve always loved Low’s ‘Just Like Christmas’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IippcraBPKA
Such a deliciously sweet song, with the sleigh bells and the rhythm section chugging away underneath it.
It’s the highlight of a Christmas album they released back in the late nineties – the whole album is brilliant. They’re Mormons, so the whole album is quite biblical and stuffed with religious references, but it’s quite dark and sombre, and subtle. Well worth listening to.
Ah, they’re flirting. Just a typical movie romance of the period. Nothing to see here, folks.
Can’t say I like it much musically (that period does not appeal to my musical taste). I much prefer Bob Seger’s ode to a one night stand, We’ve Got Tonight. Best when performed as a duet e.g. by Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3BuITOx3Cs
Though the change in social attitudes from the 40’s to the 80’s is accurately reflected in the line “No-one will care, girl”
If they’re going to ban Baby It’s Cold Outside, they’re going to have to drive a bulldozer though the catalogue of popular songs, most of which are driven by, errm, biology.
How about Angel of the Morning (sung by almost everybody)?
Or almost anything sung by Rod Stewart (“Tonight’s the Night” ?)
Paradise by the Dashboard Light – Meatloaf
Girl You’ll be a Woman Soon – Neil Diamond
(and many others by Meatloaf or Neil Diamond)
I could go on…
cr
HelenaHandBasket’s post amd comment (above) of Ella Fitzgerald’s version is great.
I like it, don’t get any rapey feel – it’s just well sung and has a bit of playfulness.
Oh, like the lyrics intended.
My problem with all the language policing is that the only way to appease everyone is to always be literal – no poetry, allusion, puns, comedy, sarcasm, allegory, metaphor – the death of art, nuance, and playfulness.
Not only that, but almost all rock lyrics would be forbidden. And you know what kids are wont to do with what is forbidden.
They is gonna eat that apple…
My opinion of this song has always been the same as that in the Kirkman tweet. It really pissed me off because of society’s attitudes towards women who weren’t “good girls”. They were sure as hell the attitudes of my own father who said, repeatedly, “There are three kinds of women: wives, virgins, and whores.”
I actually didn’t know about the far-left attitude that it’s rape-y. I can sort of see why some fu€k₩it$ might think that, but as far as I’m concerned they’re just wrong.
However, I notice a lot of younger women, especially from privileged backgrounds, who never had to deal with the way things were not so long ago, have some pretty screwed up ideas about relationships.
I grew up listening to these songs and watching these movies.
I don’t rape.
Rapists are not formed from musical comedy fans.
I DO however, in my curmudgeonery, have a problem with so much of current rap being so anti-woman (and decidely rapey and misogynistic) – and I really like rap!
But let’s not call out overt sexism – let’s go after a 1944 tune.
Next: Cat Stevens ‘Father & Son’ – misogynist and exlusionary – not a woman’s voice in sight!! Re-write needed: ‘Strong Woman & non-binary offspring’.
#killmenow
I like this comment!
Well, sure, but it’s not a Christmas song.
Christmas is the old pagan feast of life -the green tree- when all appears dead (later appropriated by Christians). I’d guess that some new copulatory relations do fit in that picture, what else have we got mistletoe for?
🙂
So yes, it is a Christmas song, a Yule song.
The BBC has an article on this and they discuss three other songs that some people think, maybe, shouldn’t be played anymore.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46425160
I sort of get “Fairytale of New York City” with the words “faggot” and “slut” in the stream of insults verse, but I would still say “grow up”. But “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “Jingle Bells”, WTF.
But why stop at old standards? Lot’s of rock and rap are also questionable to say the least.
For some reason, the first song that entered my head on reading your post was “Smack My Bitch Up” by The Prodigy. The video for it is worth watching if you haven’t seen t before.
Yes, that’s what I was referring to. Probably pretty close to jingle bells. I’m sure we could find some traces of misogyny in that. 😎