Baby, it’s still cold outside
[NOTE: This is a redux of a post I wrote a year ago. Apparently they’re still making a big fuss about this song, so I thought I’d revisit it.]
The song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was written in 1944 by the brilliant Frank Loesser, composer and lyricist for the musical masterpieces “Guys and Dolls,” “The Most Happy Fellow” (performed less frequently because of its operatic requirements, but absolutely gorgeous and tremendously touching), and the lesser (pun, ha ha) but still great “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.” He also wrote the songs to the movie “Hans Christian Anderson,” a favorite in my youth.
Note that Loesser wrote the music and lyrics to all those musicals and to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” as well. That’s quite unusual, although not completely unique: Irving Berlin and Cole Porter come to mind as composer/lyricists, too.
And speaking of lyrics—no doubt you’ve heard about the current drive to ban “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” for being insufficiently PC in the sexual assault/harassment realm. After all, the song tells the tale of a man who is trying to persuade a woman to stay for the night, and he uses the cold weather outside as an excuse. But if you actually look at the lyrics, it’s clear that the woman wants to stay, and that her protests are merely for the sake of propriety, and that the whole thing is a flirtatious little game of seduction. In her objections she keeps mentioning what other people will think, not her own feelings. So you might say she’s striking a blow for autonomy and throwing off fusty old custom when she acquiesces at the end.
The entire exchange described in the lyrics is reflective of a previous era when reputation was a big big thing, causing quite a few women to say “no” when they were thinking “yes” and could be persuaded by men who were reading their wishes correctly—as is the man in the song. For young women today, that’s not a description of their mothers’ era, and maybe not even their grandmothers’ era—it’s their great- or great-great grandmother’s era. But that’s the way it often was.
When I was a child—pre-internet, of course—my friends and I used to amuse ourselves in various archaic ways. We not only listened to musicals on a primitive record player that played scratchy 33s, we also played the piano. That is, my friend (who went to Julliard at a very young age and was an excellent player and sight-reader) played the piano, and we both sang. Her family had copies of the Fireside series of songbooks, and so I learned a lot of songs that were considerably older than “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” In one of the Fireside Books (I think this one) you could find this song, written in 1897 (performed here by Johnny Cash):
That’s history, too.
Frank Loesser used to perform “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with his wife at parties. Here’s the story:
Loesser wrote the duet in 1944 and premiered the song with his wife, [the singer] Lynn Garland, at their Navarro Hotel in New York housewarming party, and performed it toward the end of the evening, signifying to guests that it was nearly time to end the party. Loesser would introduce himself as the “Evil of Two Loessers”, a play on the theme of the song, trying to keep the girl from leaving, and on the phrase “lesser of two evils”. This was a period when the Hollywood elite’s chief entertainment was throwing parties and inviting guests who were expected to perform. Garland wrote that after the first performance, “We become instant parlor room stars. We got invited to all the best parties for years on the basis of ‘Baby.’ It was our ticket to caviar and truffles. Parties were built around our being the closing act.” Garland considered it their song and was furious when Loesser told her he was selling the song. Garland wrote, “I felt as betrayed as if I’d caught him in bed with another woman.”
Well, that was a foretaste of things to come, because while working on “The Most Happy Fella” (1956), Loesser took up with the show’s leading lady Jo Sullivan and left Garland (as told by his daughter Susan):
My mother did a lot of the casting for “The Most Happy Fella.” She was co-producer with Kermit Bloomgarden, and when she heard Jo sing, she said, Boy, this is a voice – this is a voice and a personality Frank would just love.
So she sent Jo to audition for my father, sealing her fate. It was a very hard time for everybody. I – my brother and I were uprooted from our California suburban lifestyle and brought to New York City. We at first stayed with friends and then moved to a small apartment.
My mother was not happy and was drinking more and more, and I had never lived in such close quarters with her before, and that was when I began to see that she was – she had big problems.
Everything changed for all of us. My father was living across Central Park in an apartment of his own and having his affair with Jo, and everybody was – he wasn’t real happy either. It was a very – a time full of turmoil, although for him, I think, it was mitigated a great deal by the great success of “The Most Happy Fella.”
If you ever get a chance to see a decent production of “The Most Happy Fella,” run, don’t walk—before the entire Loesser oeuvre gets erased by the Thought Police.
This year, for some reason, I’m hearing renditions of Baby it’s Cold Outside more than any other holiday song. So much so, that I’m actually getting tired of it (and it was always a favorite of mine). If there is a ban catching on, it’s clearly not widespread (yet anyway).
I’ve also been hearing an eye-rolling “woke” version of the song, which is getting a lot of airplay on the Christmas Coffeehouse station on Spotify and elsewhere. Ugh. I suspect that these same hand-wringers probably don’t bat an eye at the genuinely “rapey,” misogynistic rap songs that are out there and much more pervasive than one vintage holiday song. Romance really is dead. You can hear the rewrite of Baby here:
https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2018/12/12/theres-woke-rewrite-baby-cold-outside-cringey-think/
That’s an interesting, albeit sad, story about the origin of the song and subsequent breakdown of the Loessers’ marriage.
Amazing story. I reminds me of a few films of the 40’s where either Lauren Bacall or Hoagy Carmichael would be singing piano-side at some large and loud house party. There would be one room where all the party goers would be quiet listening to the performance. The only film name that comes to mind is To Have and Have Not, but that one has a cabaret performance.
I didn’t catch the details, but there is some radio station that has collected most of the various renditions of the original Baby It’s Cold Outside, and plays them back-to-back on a loop for 5 hours each day.
Anyone who pays attention to the lyrics at all knows she wants to stay and is just pretending she doesn’t. It’s fun, and nobody is coerced.
And thanks for the Johnny Cash link. I miss the days when being a lady meant something.
Rational and reasonable prevail.
I like the Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton version.
The movie “Delovely” has a nice scene of playing the piano at a big party. Also, there is a scene on “Gosford Park” of a similar party.
Can someone explain to me how the repression of sexuality and the enormous pressure to conform to social norms in Christendom is different in kind from that of Islam?
I have lived long enough to see the pendulum of sexual openness swing back and forth a few times. I don’t particularly enjoy the periods of excesses in social/sexual behavior, but I far prefer these to the repressed puritanical periods. I have also found that the more repressed sexuality is in public, the more extreme are its expressions in private.
And, by the way, the entire purpose of this nonsense is to make men feel guilty and apologetic for their very existence.
Not buying it…
Roy:
Last time I checked there were a few differences espoused in Islam regarding the sexual treatment of infidel women with those espoused by Christianity. You may have heard about the “free rape card” endorsed by Mr. Mo and practiced to this day.
Help, help I’m repressed by Christianity! /s
Claiming that Islam and Christianity treat women the same shows little understanding of either faith. As to what private sexual expressions were in Victorian times, I don’t know, but what’s going on now in public when sexuality is not repressed is pretty extreme.
Others have commented on the absurdity of the #MeToo movement coexisting with the popularity of “Fifty Shades of Grey” with American women; cognitive sexual dissonance? This must of course be the laid at the foot of Christianity and all the repression contained therein, /S ad infinitum
Off topic, somewhat but a comment on YouTube.
So … as I was reading your posting some Danny Kaye video was running,
It finished, before I finished, and I went back to look at the player window.
There, the “suggestions” for further viewing surprised me, because they look for all the world as if YouTube knew who was watching – as in me – rather than who had posted – as in you.
So, unless you have been watching Agadmator’s Chess Channel, and have a probable interest in the revolution turbine propulsion brought to sea power, and the housing crisis in China … then I guess that they know it’s me. Even though it’s your posting, and your site.
Talk about someone knowing the answers before they ask the question.
Wow! Just wow, on the songs he wrote! Like “Praise the Lord and Pass the ammunition” Just wow!
DNW:
They know it’s your computer by the cookies. When you play a YouTube video at this site it still refers back to YouTube at their site and I’m assuming that gives YouTube access to information about your usage there.
Amazing story. I reminds me of a few films of the 40’s where either Lauren Bacall or Hoagy Carmichael would be singing piano-side at some large and loud house party. There would be one room where all the party goers would be quiet listening to the performance. The only film name that comes to mind is To Have and Have Not, but that one has a cabaret performance.
TommyJay: You may be thinking of “The Big Sleep.” About halfway through Lauren Bacall goes to a gambling club. In a room separate from the gambling she sings lead to the piano while others chime in for the chorus or listen quietly.
It’s an odd song which sounds cold and misognystic today. A wife reproves her husband for buying things for everyone but her:
And when his wife said “Hey now!
What did you get for me?”
He socked her in the choppers
Such a sweet, sweet guy was he!
Refrain:
And her tears flowed like wine
Yes, her tears flowed like wine
She’s a real sad tomato
She’s a busted Valentine
Knows her mama done told her
That her man is darned unkind
https://momentstoremember2.wordpress.com/tag/the-big-sleep/
The film cuts from the song to Bogart having some words with the crime boss who runs the joint, so one doesn’t hear the song’s ending in which the husband gets his comeuppance. Plus a twist.
I always wonder if people actually did those kind of singalongs in the 40s. I suppose so, though probably not so polished. Back in those days people entertained each other more and there was usually a piano in respectable living rooms.
Of course the American past is littered with cruel cultural artifacts, which we have happily since overcome. Now we are so much further advanced, we are eradicating micro-aggressions. Nano-aggressions are next.
Here’s an old song I looked up because Paul Newman sang a scrap of it in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’:
Oooh! Never hit your Grandma with a shovel
It makes a bad impression on her mind
(On her mind)
In a better way impart
All the love things in your heart
For it’s possible she may retort in kind
(Retort in kind)
Remember Granny’s known you since a baby
And even though in fun, could prove a shock
(Prove a shock)
So respect her aged head,
Stay the shovel and instead
Paste your dear old, sweet old Grandma
With a rock.
“Never Hit Your Grandma With a Shovel”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIwr261Sfsw
Om and Kate,
I did qualify it by saying “in kind”. Although I don’t like either religion, the modern manifestations of Christianity are certainly more tolerable to live with than those of Islam.
Roy:
So you feel a little less repressed under Christianity than under Islam? What a modern problem to have. Best not to live in the UK or Sweden as they have this modern problem in a bigger way than you can conceive.
They know it’s your computer by the cookies.
It’s worse than that. I drive over to Orange County every few months to visit kids and grandkids. We will go again Saturday for Christmas. When I log in in OC, the Facebook app knows from the ISP where I am.
A computer science professor tried turning off all location options and her location was still being picked up.
It’s like cellphones. Take the battery out if you want to hide.
Om,
You are seriously not understanding. It is the believers of religions that are repressed because of the imposed guilt for their invented “sins”. As an Atheist, I am free from this sort of guilt, and thus, cannot be repressed by it in my own conscious.
However, as a human being, I live within the social matrix I am surrounded by. To do so successfully requires that I conform to local (and ever changing) cultural norms in public.
The difference between the religious believer and myself is that I am aware of the artificial and changing nature of social mores. I accept them voluntarily and adapt my public behavior accordingly, not through guilt or fear, but as a matter of pure practicality.
So, while I cannot be “repressed” by religion, I can be, and frequently am, annoyed by it.
The difference between the religious believer and myself is that I am aware of the artificial and changing nature of social mores.
And unaware of abiding moral truths.
Thanks for the self-congratulation. It’s been an education.
Bacall sang with Hoagy on piano in To Have and Have Not. Also in Eddie Mars’ place in Big Sleep, as noted above.
See for contrast Claire Trevor singing at the insistence of her gangster boyfriend (what is the right term for the male side of a Moll / gangster relationship?) played by E.G. Robinson in Key Largo.
Wikipedia’s description of how that scene was directed is worth a glance.
Roy the Atheist, a god unto himself, and yet he is repressed, and annoyed too. Poor non-soul entity (not). His belief structure is not working out too well. You speak for yourself and presume to speak for the non-atheists, how humble too./s
Here’s more on “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” from “The Big Sleep.”
https://www.jazzwax.com/2017/11/and-her-tears-flowed-like-wine.html
“The Big Sleep” is one of my favorite movies and I always wondered about that song. Was it some standard I’d missed or was it a peculiar choice made by the film creators?
Turns out it was a big band jazz hit from a couple years before the film — Stan Kenton and his Orchestra with Anita O’Day singing. Later Ella Fitzgerald covered it.
So the song was hot stuff in its time and the movie audience would have been familiar with it, known the ending, therefore been aware the song wasn’t merely mocking the abused wife.
A very weird sidelight is Andy Williams (yes, that Andy Williams) was intended to do the vocal, overdubbing Bacall. Happily, that plan was axed and Bacall’s real singing is what you hear.
An odd tangent on Hoagy Carmichael — Ian Fleming, author of the Jame Bond spy novels, pictured James Bond as looking like Hoagy Carmichael!