What a checkered history this song has.
For years I have been mistaken,
familiar with the Johnny Mercer / Margaret Whiting duet recording,
and I believed that Mercer had written it.

Well before my time,
Loesser, the actual author,
got the song into an Esther Williams movie of all things.
And the song won itself an Oscar there.

The radio gives a lot of airplay to certain versions of
"Baby It's Cold Outside" every year,
particularly at the end of the calendar year,
leading up to Christmastide and New Year's.   

The recording by Ray Charles and Betty Carter,
with a big-band arrangement
and with Ms. Carter singing very much like a horn,
is a performance that people still talk about,
long after both singers have passed away.

It troubles me that THEIR version doesn't turn up on the radio.

Is it because it is so sophisticated and grown-up sounding
that it makes all the other recordings
sound like child's play?

Ray Charles and Betty Carter