Baby, It's Cold Outside (Consensual Remix)

[+ quoththeraven]

A friend used this for sexuality education at her (Unitarian Universalist) church. The "new" lyrics can be found in the YouTube description.

 

Happy New Year, and stay warm with your partner(s) of choice.

[+ FreshFluff]

And a generation later, the human race dies off. Seriously, why are the original lyrics not "consensual?"

 

Maybe they should try it with one:

[+ WilliamM]

 

I'm not sure why there is a need to replace the lyrics by the great Frank Loesser who also wrote the music and lyrics for "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying." Loesser is probably the most under rated songwriter from the Tin Pan Alley/Broadway era. He wrote many other songs that made the hit parade in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

 

QTR: I do understand the consenual part, or at least think I do. It's the loss of Loesser's lyrics that concern me.

[+ nycman]

I admit it...I cried the first time I watched this......

 

[+ quoththeraven]

And a generation later, the human race dies off. Seriously, why are the original lyrics not "consensual?"

 

Look at the Wiki entry, for starters. She is reluctant; he's pressuring her to stay. That's what makes its consensuality dubious.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby,_It's_Cold_Outside

 

The human race will not die off if people stop pressuring people into sex. The sex is likely to be better, though.

[+ nycman]

She is reluctant; he's pressuring her to stay. That's what makes its consensuality dubious.

 

Ugh...repent....the end is near!

[+ WilliamM]

 

One of Frank Loesser's other famous songs, not written for Broadway shows ("Guys and Dolls" "The Most Happy Fella") or movies ("Hans Christian Anderson").

 

Loesser wrote the words for hundreds of songs; it's unfair to judge him by just "Baby, It's Cold Outside" IMHO.

[tyro]

The first time I really listened to the words of the original version, I thought, "This poor bastard is SO trying to get laid...and he's kind of being a douche about it...dummy, if you quit being a pest and just let her go home tonight (and if she likes you) you are almost GUARANTEED a good BJ soon..."

T

PS The first time I listened to the lyrics? This past Christmas. QTR is on to something, y'all.

[+ WilliamM]

The first time I really listened to the words of the original version, I thought, "This poor bastard is SO trying to get laid...and he's kind of being a douche about it...dummy, if you quit being a pest and just let her go home tonight (and if she likes you) you are almost GUARANTEED a good BJ soon..."

T

PS The first time I listened to the lyrics? This past Christmas. QTR is on to something, y'all.

 

The song was written in 1944 during World War II. I was less than a year old at the time. Perhaps we should go back to all the songs written in the first half of the 20th century and take a second look.

 

I do understand that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is in a different category because it is just as popular today as when it was written. Still the song is not atypical of lyrics and music of the 1940s and before & after. And Frank Loesser was one of the most respected songwriters around in the 1940s and for the rest of his life. Most of popular songs of that period were about love and it's many variations. Again, it was written in World War II when many husbands, lovers and boyfriends were fighting a war on two front, with no idea of the outcome!

[Nvr2Thick]

The song was written in 1944 during World War II. I was less than a year old at the time. Perhaps we should go back to all the songs written in the first half of the 20th century and take a second look.

 

I do understand that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is in a different category because it is just as popular today as when it was written. Still the song is not atypical of lyrics and music of the 1940s and before & after. And Frank Loesser was one of the most respected songwriters around in the 1940s and for the rest of his life. Most of popular song of that period were about love and it's many variations. Again, it was written in World War II when many husbands, lovers and boyfriends were fighting a war on two front, with no idea of the outcome!

 

Of course. I'd say that the playfully suggestive reluctance vs. pressure was the entire point of the song. These were topics you could get away with when set to music between two popular singers. Consider this song, also playfully suggestive, which was a toned down version of a more lewd lyric.

 

[+ WilliamM]

Frank Loesser died realatively young in 1969. But, his widow, Jo Sillivan Loesser, is still alive. She is his second wife. They met when she played a starring role in his hit Broadway musical "The Most Happy Fella" in the 1950s. One of their daughters is an actress.

 

The following is usually included when Loesser is mentioned. Loesser and Cole Porter were the only top ranked songwriters (Broadway/Hollywood & Tin Pan Alley) of his era who were not Jewish.

[+ quoththeraven]

 

One of Frank Loesser's other famous songs, not written for Broadway shows ("Guys and Dolls" "The Most Happy Fella") or movies ("Hans Christian Anderson").

 

Loesser wrote the words for hundreds of songs; it's unfair to judge him by just "Baby, It's Cold Outside" IMHO.

 

I'm not judging Loesser by one song! My friend posted this on her LJ last year and given the discussions we've had about what constitutes consent, I thought the video would be worth posting here. I didn't check who wrote the music or the lyrics.

 

Also, this points out ways we've evolved. At the time, this wouldn't have been considered questionable. Much of this still goes on. Plying women with alcohol, which is something that does get raised in the lyrics, was and is a technique for getting laid even though past a certain point it jeopardizes consent. It's also a milder version of completely incapacitating someone through the use of, say, quaaludes.

 

I like the Rolling Stones, but their song " Brown Sugar" is a mess of racism (including references to slavery) and sexism. I won't play it or buy it. I adore the Doors, but the improv Jim Morrison does to the lyrics of "Gloria" in the live performance that's on YouTube somewhere gets uncomfortably rapey. There's plenty of more recent stuff that is problematic for the same or similar reasons. "Blurred Lines," anyone?

 

It's just a song. Don't like the remix or see the need for it, walk away and don't listen.

[+ WilliamM]

I'm not judging Loesser by one song! My friend posted this on her LJ last year and given the discussions we've had about what constitutes consent, I thought the video would be worth posting here. I didn't check who wrote the music or the lyrics.

 

Also, this points out ways we've evolved. At the time, this wouldn't have been considered questionable. Much of this still goes on. Plying women with alcohol, which is something that does get raised in the lyrics, was and is a technique for getting laid even though past a certain point it jeopardizes consent. It's also a milder version of completely incapacitating someone through the use of, say, quaaludes.

 

I like the Rolling Stones, but their song " Brown Sugar" is a mess of racism (including references to slavery) and sexism. I won't play it or buy it. I adore the Doors, but the improv Jim Morrison does to the lyrics of "Gloria" in the live performance that's on YouTube somewhere gets uncomfortably rapey. There's plenty of more recent stuff that is problematic for the same or similar reasons. "Blurred Lines," anyone?

 

It's just a song. Don't like the remix or see the need for it, walk away and don't listen.

 

QTR: "It's just a song. Don't like the remix or see the need for it, walk away and don't listen." Yes, it's just one song, but by one of the most respected songwriters of the 20th century.

 

I feel just as strongly about this disagreement as you do because (as you can tell) I have an enormous amount of respect from Mr. Loesser. In Wilfred Sheed's "The House That George [Gershwin] Built," Frank Loesser has a chapter as long as Richard Rodgers, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen et al. Only George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Cole Poter have longer chapters.

 

If my memory is correct, I have always supported you on women's issue. So we have no history of disagreement on this subject, no past baggage. I do understand you are surprised that I so strongly disagree. I am not disagreeing about the lyrics. As you write, at the time it was written it would not have been considered questional. My issue is one song out of thousands by Loesser.

 

The Rolling Stone and Jim Morrison owe at least a tiny bit of their respective successes, due to anti-establishment sentiment.

 

Out of respect for you, this is my last comment on the remix.

[+ FreshFluff]

Pressuring her to stay is different from proceeding without consent. The former may be undesirable, but the latter is illegal. The more that distinction gets lost, there harder it will be to prevent and prosecute actual acquaintance rape. And I'm as interested in doing that as anyone is.

 

Also, from your Wiki link: "At the time the song was written and for sometime after, however, it was not socially acceptable for women to agree to spend the night with a man to whom they were not married and the words "I ought to say no no no." refer to the social mores which the woman in the song wishes to ignore."

 

Here are the full lyrics to the version sung by Louis Armstrong. She expresses mixed feelings, and he flatters her into staying. The closest thing to coercion is the insinuation that, when she requests "half a drink more," he pours her something stronger than she expects ("What's in this drink?").

 

http://www.metrolyrics.com/baby-its-cold-outside-lyrics-louis-armstrong.html

[+ WilliamM]

I strongly agree with Barbra Streisand's decision to stop singing dependent women songs as much as possible.

 

Example: "The Man That Got Away" (Harold Arlen/Ira Gershwin) Judy Garland

"Supper Time" (Iving Berlin) Ethel Waters

"Stormy Weather" (Arlen/Ted Koehler) Lena Horne

 

It may not have been an easy decision because one of Streisand big breaks was appearing on "The Judy Garland Show" on CBS in 1963. Streisand has never forgotten that Garland treated her as an equal.

[+ purplekow]

It seems clear to me from the very beginning of the song, that she has no intention of leaving. Well may be a half a drink more. Well may be a cigarette more. I really can't stay but ahh its cold outside. It seems she is clicking off the reasons she should go but even the one time she actually says no, it is not clear that no meant no. In the end she decides to stay. Persuasion, perhaps. More, she doth protest too much and not very well.

I have always taken no for answer, so perhaps I do not see coercion