Friday, December 9, 2011

I Really Can't Stay...

But Baby It's Cold Outside...

I really like the song "Baby It's Cold Outside". To me, is just a simple boy/girl mutual seduction and not in the least bit creepy. She can clearly leave anytime she wants to, but she wants to stay, but she doesn't want to be too "forward", so she acts like she has to go. He acts like her considerations are real and gently counters them. It's a friendly song. It's in the movie "Elf" for Christ's sake. But over and over I hear this modern "date rape" and "creepy" take on this song and I think it's really too bad. This song is from a different time and applying a modern black and white, "everything that's not stated explicitly between men and women is somehow not consensual", seems wrong to me. He's not slipping her a "roofie", he's giving her a toddy. The song was written in 1944 by Frank Loesser. According to Wikipedia, he wrote it as a duet and premiered the song with his wife, Lynn Garland, at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party. So I like it and I would sing it if I knew how to play it and had someone to do the female part.

6 comments:

  1. I'm with you, Gene. I think it's a mutual seduction, the age old "I want to, but I can't, but I want to" the yin yang of romance that is both enticing, yet forbidden. The forbidden makes it more naughty, but it doesn't mean there's anything immoral or illegal going on. Just love doin it's thang ;-)

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  2. Some people have so much negativity in their lives or in their heads that they can't even listen to a sweet, slightly sexy song without turning it around. As you say, it was a different time. No one at that time would have, or did, take it as anything other than what it was meant to be, a sweet seduction, and a great winter song. :) Sheila

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  3. Have you all seen "Elf"? There's a lovely version in the movie sung by Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel, much better than the version in the Elf Soundtrack that she does with Leon Redbone.

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  4. Jesus Christ, you need to move out of Ashland. May I suggest Egypt? More freedom there.

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  5. Actually, it was mostly facebook posts from outside Ashland that described the song as "creepy"....

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