# Baby Its Cold Outside 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. ## 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 drink[1]. 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 saying[2]. 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 something[1]. 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 overnight[3]. 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 MacFarlane[4]. 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 prey[1]. 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 lyrics[2]. In December 2018 Cleveland radio station Star 102.1 pulled Baby Its Cold Outside from its Christmas rotation following listener complaints[5]. 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 reactions[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Baby Its Cold Outside? It is a 1944 duet in which a man tries to persuade a woman to stay at his place overnight while she keeps giving reasons she has to leave[1]. ### Where did Baby Its Cold Outside come from? Frank Loesser wrote it in 1944 as a party piece for himself and his wife, and MGM turned it into an Oscar-winning number in the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter[3]. ### What does Baby Its Cold Outside mean? Loesser wrote the parts as 'Wolf' and 'Mouse,' so it was built as flirty pursuit, but modern readers argue the lyrics, especially 'say, what's in this drink?', sound like coercion or date rape[1]. ### How do you use Baby Its Cold Outside? It still plays on Christmas radio and shows up in holiday films, and online it gets referenced any time someone wants to argue about consent in older song lyrics[2]. ### Is Baby Its Cold Outside still popular? Yes as a Christmas standard, though Cleveland station Star 102.1 pulled it from rotation in December 2018 after listener complaints during the MeToo era[5]. ## References 1. [https://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/is_baby_its_cold_outside_a_date_rape_anthem/]() 2. [https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-wtf-covers-of-baby-its-cold-outside-everyones-favorite-date-rape-holiday-classic]() 3. [https://books.google.com/books?id=A+Most+Remarkable+Fella]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/baby-its-cold-outside]() 5. [https://star102cleveland.iheart.com/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/baby-its-cold-outside Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library