Baby, It’s Cold Outside

1,356 words

Christmas is a time of hope and good cheer, and nothing has lifted my spirits more than a recent article in Billboard entitled “’Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Heats Up On Charts After Lyrics Controversy.” It appears that morbidly obese blue-haired feminists and the gender-fluid soyboys who love them are being hoisted on their own petards in their attempt to ban the perennially favorite Frank Loesser tune from 1944 as being somehow a paean to date rape. Sales and livestreaming of the forbidden song are skyrocketing to the extent that even some radio stations that had “deplatformed” the song are now undeplatforming it.

But why all the fuss? The SJW harridans never seem to get upset about misogynistic rap lyrics that glorify anal rape and sodomy. Why get upset about a song that features the innocent importuning of a lovesick boyfriend? Of course, the answer is obvious. The Loesser song is a harmonically — and lyrically — sophisticated example taken from the Great American Songbook (that is, the Great White American Songbook), and rap is what we get when we allow Negroes to try to create something without utilizing white artistic templates under the firm guidance of white instructors. And as the critics from the culture of critique constantly remind us, anything that is black is intrinsically good, and anything that is white is intrinsically bad.

Let’s take an in-depth look at the lyrics of the song that causes so much pain for the Left. The song is set in the form of a dialogue in which the protagonist and antagonist engage in a type of call-and-response, a technique that goes back to ancient Greek comedy and is called stichomachia. The female begins the dialogue, with the male’s responses indicated by the parentheses:

I really can’t stay (but baby, it’s cold outside)
I’ve got to go away (but baby, it’s cold outside)

This evening has been (been hoping that you’d drop in)
So very nice (I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice)

My mother will start to worry (beautiful what’s your hurry?)
My father will be pacing the floor (listen to the fireplace roar)

So really I’d better scurry (beautiful please don’t hurry)
But maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour)

The neighbors might think (baby, it’s bad out there)
Say what’s in this drink? (no cabs to be had out there)

I wish I knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)
To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)

I ought to say, no, no, no sir (mind if I move in closer?)
At least I’m gonna say that I tried (what’s the sense in hurtin’ my pride?)

I really can’t stay (oh baby don’t hold out)
But baby, it’s cold outside

I simply must go (but baby, it’s cold outside)
The answer is no (but baby, it’s cold outside)

Your welcome has been (how lucky that you dropped in)
So nice and warm (look out the window at this dawn)

My sister will be suspicious (gosh your lips look delicious)
My brother will be there at the door (waves upon the tropical shore)

My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious (gosh your lips are delicious)
But maybe just a cigarette more (never such a blizzard before)

I’ve gotta get home (but baby, you’d freeze out there)
Say lend me a coat (it’s up to your knees out there)

You’ve really been grand (I thrill when you touch my hand)
But don’t you see? (how can you do this thing to me?)

There’s bound to be talk tomorrow (think of my lifelong sorrow)
At least there will be plenty implied (if you got pneumonia and died)

I really can’t stay (get over that old out)
Baby, it’s cold
Baby, it’s cold outside

The female says that she needs to be getting home, and she thanks her host for a lovely evening. The male wants the female to stay longer and provides a number of reasons why the female should stay (inclement weather, difficulty of procuring a cab, etc.).

The female then references the concerns of her parents and siblings and worries about her reputation if she were to stay longer. This is an important point: the female is not in the least concerned with the male’s intentions; she is concerned about what the neighbors will think. The female relents to the point that she can stay long enough to smoke another cigarette, but then worries about how this will affect her reputation. She once again asserts her reluctance to stay, but joins the male in singing simultaneously the final line, a reiteration of the song’s main theme and title. Does the female stay? The song is ambiguous. You can make a case either way. Even though the hysterical opponents of the song make much of the line, “Say what’s in this drink?” it is obvious that the answer to this question is nothing deleterious. The female has not been “roofied”; she is in complete control of her wits at song’s end, and whatever choice she makes will be her choice.

Like any good work of literature, the lyrics to this song require a level of sophistication and cultural knowledge that—let’s be frank—most members of the Left are sorely lacking. One of the most salient aspects of Western civilization (that is, white civilization) is that relations between the sexes are no longer the result of physical conquest but arise out of a series of negotiations. In gentler times, we would see Mr. Smith come a-courtin’ to Miss Jones and make the case to her entire family that he is a worthy suitor. There were rules of behavior and cultural expectations, and norms that were fairly rigidly enforced. When women began to seek employment and/or move out of their parents’ homes prior to marriage, these cultural norms of behavior still obtained and were mostly enforced by women. Intelligent women realized that there was much good sense in mom’s admonition that “nobody will buy the cow if you give the milk away for free.” Women also recognized that a female’s reputation for chastity was every bit as important as a male’s reputation for honesty. Once lost, reputation is difficult to regain. Even though women used to zealously guard their chastity, they were still sexual creatures, every bit as subject to hormonal proclivities as men. What the SJWs fail to realize about the female in the song is that she sexually desires the male. She wouldn’t be at his residence in the first place if she weren’t already sexually attracted to him; however, she cannot appear to be “easy,” nor can she do anything that might harm her reputation. So she and the male begin a series of negotiations, a coy give-and-take, that end in ambiguity.

The ambiguous ending to the song increases the sexual tension and points to something that the SJWs could never understand or even contemplate, namely, that the evening for the female and male will end innocently and will be first step in a relationship that progresses incrementally towards marriage and family. Although the breakdown of male-female normative relationships and the destruction of white families have been long-term goals of the Left, I do not believe that SJW opposition to hetero-normativity is exclusively a result of the influence of the Frankfurt School; I think a large part of the SJW’s opposition comes from a complete inability to comprehend normality, that derives from a lack of experience. I am reminded that Arthur Koestler famously remarked: “A feminist is someone who is upset because she was never asked to dance.”

Although the Christmas season is a time of goodwill for all men, I hope that I will be forgiven for enjoying the Schadenfreude of watching the SJWs fail so miserably to get “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” banned from the airwaves and the Internet. The Wikipedia article on the song lists sixty-six recordings in every possible style, so there’s no excuse not to listen to this song over the holidays and drive up its metrics. Happy Holidays to all, and may all your Christmases be white. Exclusively white.