Baby Its Cold Outside

1944songclassic

Baby Its Cold Outside is a 1944 duet in which a man tries to talk a woman out of going home while she keeps naming reasons she has to leave. It became a Christmas radio staple after the 1949 MGM film Neptune's Daughter, then turned into one of the loudest online arguments about consent in old song lyrics.

earworm memesseasonal memesmoral panic memespre digital memesgender discourse memes

Overview

Baby Its Cold Outside is a mid-century duet in which a man tries to talk a woman out of leaving his place, pointing to the snow as one reason after another for her to stay through another drink1. The male line is written to sound smooth and playful, while the female line is a running string of polite protests and excuses about her family waiting up. The song sat quietly in the Christmas rotation for decades before writers online started picking apart what the lyrics were actually saying2.

The debate hangs on a handful of lines. She sings 'the answer is no' and later 'say, what's in this drink?', which some readers hear as a woman being worn down or possibly slipped something1. Defenders counter that 'what's in this drink' was a 1940s comic idiom for blaming the booze rather than yourself, and that her real worry is neighborhood gossip about staying overnight3. Because both readings fit the text, Baby Its Cold Outside turned into one of the most argued-over Christmas songs of the 2010s.

How It Spread

After Neptune's Daughter, Baby Its Cold Outside was covered by essentially every singer with a Christmas record to sell, from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong to Lady Gaga and Seth MacFarlane4. It stayed on seasonal airplay for decades with no real controversy.

The date-rape reading went mainstream in the early 2010s. Salon ran a December 2012 piece titled 'Is Baby It's Cold Outside a date rape anthem?' laying out the case that the man is a predator and the woman is prey1. The Daily Beast followed with a piece calling it 'Everyone's Favorite Date-Rape Holiday Classic,' pegged to an Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé music video that has children lip-syncing the lyrics2.

In December 2018 Cleveland radio station Star 102.1 pulled Baby Its Cold Outside from its Christmas rotation following listener complaints5. Facebook writer James Fell posted an 'expanding brain' meme joking that whichever side of the argument you land on, the song still is not that good; the post picked up more than 1,200 reactions4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Baby Its Cold Outside

1944songclassic

Baby Its Cold Outside is a 1944 duet in which a man tries to talk a woman out of going home while she keeps naming reasons she has to leave. It became a Christmas radio staple after the 1949 MGM film Neptune's Daughter, then turned into one of the loudest online arguments about consent in old song lyrics.

earworm memes seasonal memes moral panic memes pre digital memes gender discourse memes

Overview

Baby Its Cold Outside is a mid-century duet in which a man tries to talk a woman out of leaving his place, pointing to the snow as one reason after another for her to stay through another drink1. The male line is written to sound smooth and playful, while the female line is a running string of polite protests and excuses about her family waiting up. The song sat quietly in the Christmas rotation for decades before writers online started picking apart what the lyrics were actually saying2.

The debate hangs on a handful of lines. She sings 'the answer is no' and later 'say, what's in this drink?', which some readers hear as a woman being worn down or possibly slipped something1. Defenders counter that 'what's in this drink' was a 1940s comic idiom for blaming the booze rather than yourself, and that her real worry is neighborhood gossip about staying overnight3. Because both readings fit the text, Baby Its Cold Outside turned into one of the most argued-over Christmas songs of the 2010s.

How It Spread

After Neptune's Daughter, Baby Its Cold Outside was covered by essentially every singer with a Christmas record to sell, from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong to Lady Gaga and Seth MacFarlane4. It stayed on seasonal airplay for decades with no real controversy.

The date-rape reading went mainstream in the early 2010s. Salon ran a December 2012 piece titled 'Is Baby It's Cold Outside a date rape anthem?' laying out the case that the man is a predator and the woman is prey1. The Daily Beast followed with a piece calling it 'Everyone's Favorite Date-Rape Holiday Classic,' pegged to an Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé music video that has children lip-syncing the lyrics2.

In December 2018 Cleveland radio station Star 102.1 pulled Baby Its Cold Outside from its Christmas rotation following listener complaints5. Facebook writer James Fell posted an 'expanding brain' meme joking that whichever side of the argument you land on, the song still is not that good; the post picked up more than 1,200 reactions4.

Frequently Asked Questions