BW Media Spotlight

From what I can tell this song has less connection to Christmas than “Frosty The Snowman” or “Winter Wonderland” in that it’s hardly even about winter. I’ve discussed before that for a song to be a Christmas song certain criteria have to be met. 1942’s “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” meets none of them. Originally written for a gala event by Frank Loesser and performed by him and his wife, the song first went public for the movie Neptune’s Daughter, a romantic comedy that from what I can tell doesn’t even take place on Christmas and is about the comedy of errors involving a visiting polo player, a male masseuse, and the two sisters they’re trying to woo.

That leads to the question of just what the heck this is doing as a Christmas staple, which is granted the only way 1940s music usually gets kept on the radio. It’s also a song that has a number of critics, mostly against the male in the piece. The song is what’s known as a “call and response” song, in which two characters are playing off each other’s comments. Another example would be “The Girl Is Mine” by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, which is about as Christmas as this song. In it, one person is trying to convince the other to stay despite the second party thinking they should go home. A little research softened me a bit on the song, at least compared to harsher critics, but I still have misgivings despite it’s lack of holiday connection.

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