Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 03:19 PM

It,s What ? Explain please...please!

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 03:16 PM

To Deck the Halls, or baby it's cold outside, which last is rapey rapey rapey?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 02:29 PM

Apparently it was not an isolated incident, several schools in California had the same Prproblematic approach to the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 02:23 PM

Thanks for that background. I would point out that that seems to have been one teacher at one school - as opposed to "some schools".

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 01:43 PM

I can't provide a link but the school, Cherry Knoll elementary Is in Michigan. It was the music teacher who insisted on the change. However, parents were not at all pleased with this imposition of political correctness, took the matter up with the school administration who quickly decided to withdraw support for this absurdity. This teacher should not be in a classroom, he/she should be in therapy. If you are that determined to take offence, you need to take a long rest and get over yourself.
Thank you SRS, Bowlderize is exactly the word...and the Puritans are still here.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 01:29 PM

Would you be able to provide a link to something that supports the 'schools banning Deck the Halls' claim? Thanks!

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 01:26 PM

Changing the well known lyrics of a fifty year old song probably has a name, but it isn't "folk process".

Bowdlerization comes to mind.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 01:12 PM

So, what do we do about "Sweet Little Sixteen", She was just seventeen, John Lennon..I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved, Dire Straits; that little faggot is a millionaire. Mike MacGear...Norton; Norton is a pansy boy.... Some schools have banned Deck The Halls.."don we now our Gay apparel..where does this end. See my comment in an earlier post about the Retirement of St. George. This is right up there with the "outrage" about Halloween costumes and the protests in Washington state against women who were not Mexican selling tacos from a street cart....I sometimes think there are no adults left.
   Music is of its time and place and should be regarded not through the prism of "outrage", but through the ethos of the time in which it was written, otherwise there would hardly be a song left.
I shudder to think what would happen to" Get Back" by the Beatles..Joe joe was a man who thought he was a woman but he was another man,,, of where is the fainting couch ?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 12:52 PM

Wondering if we can call this a Christmas tradition yet: the annual show of indignation inspired by Baby, It's Cold Outside. You know, like the traditional late spring, early summer outrage over "dress codes; violations and consequences" in a sample of American high schools ....

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 12:23 PM

Changing the well known lyrics of a fifty year old song probably has a name, but it isn't "folk process".

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: leeneia
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 11:57 AM

People who don't like "Say, what's in this drink?" can change it. It's called folk process.

"I don't need a drink." comes to mind.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 11 Dec 19 - 10:41 AM

Well, I hadn't thought of it as Lord gregory in reverse, but it makes sense. As for what happened to "her", well, there was likely no good outcome for her either way.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Dec 19 - 12:56 PM

It's "Lord Gregory" backwards.

The heroine of that one did leave and look what happened to her.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Dec 19 - 09:31 AM

It is only nice by the fire if you aren't trying to leave.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 05:28 AM

As soon as you hear the dreaded “ problematic” , run away...as fast as you can.
However “ committed feminist” has a Nice ring to it.
But then there is the retirement of St. George., having slain the most dangerous dragon, he is now turning his sword and lance upon newts.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 02:59 AM

As long as the relationship is consensual, there's nothing at all wrong with the flirtation in this song. It reminds me of some lovely, cold nights in the days when I was single. It was nice, snuggling under the skylight and looking up at the stars...and much warmer than doing it alone.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 11:50 PM

refresh?

I still like
Ray Charles and Betty Carter
balancing cool and hot together.


And I agree,
how the interpretation is put across can make all the difference.
The song is supposed to tickle,
not inflame ...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 13 Dec 18 - 11:22 AM

Sing or don't sing, just don't ban. It is only a song. If we banned all non-PC songs most of the blues and folk repertoire would be out. "Shake your money-maker" anyone?
RtS

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 18 - 11:19 AM

The way it is now, Santa can't say "ho ho ho" anymore.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Dec 18 - 04:14 PM

I think Bill Cosby gave a death sentence to the "Say, what's in this drink?" version. There needs to be a revision, and it's an interesting challenge to revise the song in a way that respects its original clever, literate humor.

Here is a revision from a couple who are what I'm guessing to be millennials. I kinda like it. It's not prudish, and it's not just an attempt to censor out objectionable things like cigarettes and spiked drinks. Take a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amK4U4pCTB8

It's by Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski.

---

And here's a really cute one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bbuBubZ1yE

It's by Idina Menzel & Michael Bublé. They also edited out the objectionable parts - but in 2014, before all this kerfuffle.

---

And here's one where Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt sing the original words on a special Lady Gaga did with the Muppets - they even included the cigarette:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtoW4aV-CIc

I don't think that "pre-enlightened" recordings of the song should be banned, but I do think that, since the conviction of Bill Cosby, there's a need for new recordings to "re-envision" the lyrics.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Dec 18 - 06:23 PM

Finally, a "woke" version we can all sing with gusto:

BABY, JUST GO OUTSIDE by the Holderness Family

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Dec 18 - 09:04 PM

They taught my grandson in school to sing,

"Don we now our fine apparel."

And as somebody just pointed out on the radio, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was bullied by all of the other reindeer.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 09 Dec 18 - 08:22 PM

D'ya think?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Dec 18 - 05:37 PM

Another song that for all I can find out has been ignored but should be on the #METOO list is playing right now at Starbucks:

"Santa Baby"


Sounds cute, dunnit? But it sorta sounds like the cutesie-pie antics of a kept 'person' who is trying to up the take. . .

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 09 Dec 18 - 04:33 PM

Well, one way to go at it would be to consider the rhyme in the couplet.

You could start, for instance, by changing

"the neighbors might think"

to, say,

"the neighbors might tell" ...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: leeneia
Date: 09 Dec 18 - 03:40 PM

Back to Baby It's Cold Outside.

There was a heartfelt letter to the editor today. This writer expressed dismay about "Say, what's in this drink?" I can see how somebody who got dosed with rohypnol and then raped would find that line hard to take.

Would somebody please folk-process that rhyme and get the bad taste out of our mouths? We don't have to throw away a brilliant set of lyrics because of one line.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Dec 18 - 08:22 PM

I have several Flanders and Swann records, and Flanders post-scripted a performance of this song on a live recording saying:

"Donald Swann's ten year old nephew loves this song...
Sings it all the time. . .
He thinks it's about CAKE!"

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 08:53 PM

"Have Some Madeira, M'Dear!" was a trademark song for Lou Gottlieb of the Limeliters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hO4qvEtPZ4

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 08:43 PM

Yes, I see the dilemma:

Have some Madeira, m'dear!
I've got a small cask of it here,
And once it's been opened, you know, it won't keep.
Do finish it up, it will help you to sleep ...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Loesser)
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 08:33 PM

I grew up with this song. Loved it, as I did pretty much anything done by Flanders and Swann.

But can it survive in this day and age. Does its humour outlast its subtext?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 07:30 PM

Here's the 1999 Tom Jones & Cerys Matthews performance of Baby It's Cold Outside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m3JfmExzsQ

Kinda reminiscent of Bluebeard, I think.



Here's their 2008 effort:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNWsk6AUqGU

Still sexy, but not kinky like the 1999 performance.



-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 07:06 PM

A song from the mid to late 60s on a similar theme, featuring a duet with a borderline folk singer ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCsp5WBk7kw

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 06:20 PM

As I said, if you switch the allocation of lines so the woman has the man's lines and vice versa it would still work. Where's the rule that women can't make the running in this kind of situation?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 04:40 PM

Me and the mrs just watched the Tom Jones & Cerys Matthews video from nearly 20 years ago...

Rakish devil Tom does slyly slip a magical love potion into the drink...

What was a casual joke back then, really is cringy now...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 07:21 AM

I very much like your post of 5th Dec Helen. Feminist and rational.
I agree totally.

There are so many songs which are 'of their time' and would be howled down today. But they are part of our history and our past.
As long as one is aware of the slightly dubious content, one can generally have them around without getting too aerated.

Obviously, there are limits to this, and several songs which are overtly racist or dreadfully offensive should be avoided.
It's surely just a case of using some common sense.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 04:09 AM

My feeliong about the song is that it's mutually flirtatious.
I very much doubt the woman is being led astray.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 08:32 PM

Okay, well - while we're at it, let's get rid of all those carols that are preoccupied with the status of a teenage girl's hymen; they certainly seem to be promoting outdated patriarchal control of female sexuality ....

There are few older songs that can withstand this kind of scrutiny; I suggest we simply ban from public performance all songs whose lyricists are no longer alive and able to be held to account.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 03:20 AM

Meself, I gotta say, I'm torn on this one. I see both sides. But then again, I really like this song. I can think of a number of women I'd like to sing it with, but I don't think I'd get up the courage to ask them. All in all, it IS a pretty daring song, to have been written in 1944.

The Wikipedia article on the song is interesting, as is a piece from National Public Radio. Oh, and there's an interesting take on the issue in Variety.

But what I called the "Weinstein/Ailes" mentality is very strong, and it's a daunting hurdle for women. Seems to me, we may need a little overcorrection to defeat Weinstein/Ailes - I'm willing to sacrifice this song, if that's what it takes.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 04:08 PM

"It's too easy for this song to be used as a tool for perpetuating the Harvey Weinstein / Roger Ailes mentality."

Joe, you usually talk sense - but come on ... !

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Helen
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:52 PM

I count myself as a feminist, and I totally agree that the #MeToo campaign should have happened a long, long time ago.

I also count myself as a person who prefers to act on rational, evidence-based decision making, so that's why I personally think that in this instance, the banning of this song on a radio station is taking PC a step too far. However, sometimes I think it's worthwhile to flag an issue and evaluate it e.g. looking at a line in an old song from a new perspective, rather than simply ignoring the issue.

In my final analysis, I've always liked this song, both musically and lyrically.

I've tended to see it in the context in which it is set, and I also tend to look at it in the context of women's choices in that society, at that time in history rather than trying to force-fit it into the current social and moral context.

Humans evolve - sometimes not necessarily in the most productive directions (twerking, for example? Why does the world’s top player refuse to play for her country?) - but on the whole, usually for the better of humankind so the analysis of an old song within the current social climate serves a purpose but it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I am again adding my fave quote for the decade:

"If we’re to survive this post-truth world we seem to have found ourselves in, it’s time to stand up for evidence-based decision-making, critical thought, facts, rational discussion and transparent, open communication." Joanne McCarthy

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:38 PM

It's OK, Helen..... I suppose I could alter the posts from you and Gargoyle to make them perfect, but I think that "perfect" is highly overrated...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Helen
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:36 PM

Oops! I meant to post that previous post into the OTHER thread that was started. Help, please Joe!! Could you delete it from this thread please?

No, hang on a minute Joe or Joe-clone. Are you trying to MESS WITH MY HEAD? LOL It's working. You've already melded the two threads together.

Thanks heaps.

The feminist perspective mentioned by meself.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:35 PM

Hi, Helen - I think Garg was trying to separate the song from the controversy, and there are worthwhile reasons for doing that - but it's confusing to have two current threads on the same song, so I've combined them.

I've always liked the song. I mean, heck, it's a very clever song. But then, I can see how problematic it can be in the face of a very legitimate and necessary campaign to end male sexual harassment of women. I like it that the movie turned the tables and made Betty Garrett the aggressor against Red Skelton, but I think even that doesn't save the song. It's too easy for this song to be used as a tool for perpetuating the Harvey Weinstein / Roger Ailes mentality.


-Joe-

Subject: RE: Baby Its Cold Outside - radio ban
From: Helen
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:22 PM

Hi guys, we have already been discussing the radio ban in this thread, if you would like to wander over there for a chat:

Baby Its Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)

I also posted a link to an Oz news article about the radio ban in that thread.

Subject: RE: Baby Its Cold Outside - radio ban
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 01:00 PM

They should re-write the lyrics to make it acceptable to the Me2s.

Where's Stan Freberg when he's needed?

Subject: Baby Its Cold Outside - radio ban
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 12:53 PM

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Article about banning of the song by some radio stations

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-its-cold-outside-backlash-as-more-radio-stations-ban-song-over-lyrics-amid-metoo-movement/


Mudcat Thread with Lyrics
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=97295#1912223

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

time for the pendulum to begin swinging back...its reached its apex

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: meself
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 11:05 AM

I was reading a defence of this song by a "committed feminist" last night - no, I don't have too much time on my hands, thank you; I'm just easily distracted - in which she said, among other things, that the question, "Say, what's in this drink?" was a humorous catch-phrase of the day, that shows up here and there in old movies in situations where someone is agreeing to something despite whatever their qualms may be. Now, I've never noticed that ... anyone?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 05:30 AM

For a different take on the song here's Tallulah Bankhead and Jack Carson. It's certainly not Tallulah who's in peril!

Tallulah

LFF

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 04:10 AM

The appalling Piers Morgan has just had a lot of fun on ITV this morning, arguing for the innocence of this song against a committed feminist. I found myself in agreement with him, having always assumed that the song's couple were already in a relationship, but taken in isolation it's certainly possible to read a dark side into the lyrics.

Luckily there's nothing more important going on in the world to distract from this pressing problem.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Baby It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
From: leeneia
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 12:55 AM

Once again we see that you can get a lot more free publicity by being silly than by striving to do good.

The media won't publicize not-for-profits that try to help prostitutes (who are often minors), but they'll give precious inches to somebody complaining about an old song.