Hey, there! Log in / Register
Nobody puts 'Baby, It's Cold Outside" in a corner
By adamg on Sun, 12/16/2018 - 2:52pm
WMFO, 91.5 FM in Medford, played two straight hours of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" this morning - including the versions by Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel and Michael Buble and Miss Piggy.
H/t Ron Newman for noticing, since here at UHub World Headquarters, we get WMLN in Milton on 91.5.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Ray Charles and Betty carter
Ray Charles and Betty carter version is my favorite
Real punks dint listen to
Real punks dint listen to Christmas music
I don’t think any real punks
I don’t think any real punks post on this norm wagon but ok
Also there’s litraly tons of
Also there’s litraly tons of Xmas covers done by punk bands , so don’t slag me you wanker
Kill me now.
Kill me now.
No worse than WMJX
Who plays multiple versions of (insert almost any known Christmas song here) within the same half-hour to hour time).
For those who sre unaware
Some are making an effort to ban the song because they think it's about rape.
Pathetic.
For those who are unaware
Some are making an effort to make this one of the most-played songs of Christmas because Christmas is all about triggerin' the libs.
It is about rape
A woman wants to go home, a guy wants her to stay and keep drinking.
It was suggestive when written and it still is today. Sure, 50% of pop music isn't any better but I'm just as happy to see this one get shelved. There's plenty of other shitty Xmas songs to play ad nauseum.
And people are reading WAY TOO MUCH
into this. Yes, many modern songs are way worse in their not-so suggestive nature. Where's the pus ho ban those songs as well? Perhaps we would be better off if we just IGNORED this "controversy".
Bah humbug you grump. It’s
Bah humbug you grump. It’s not about rape. You are mentally ill.
No more, please
If you immediately launch into a personal insult like that, try counting to 10 or finding another site.
Thanks.
Try again. Or try harder. Or better yet
try both consistently. For example:
"On my site, insult and question the mental health of another poster only if you are one of Us and your dancing partner is one of Them."
Act your age
Adults don't put things in quotation marks unless it's an actual quotation. If it is, you'll be able to provide a citation. Put up or shut up, Roman.
Hey hypocrite, get off your
Hey hypocrite, get off your high horse.
Ahem
Who is forcing you to read this site and the comments?
Unless you are being treated to a bit of the ultrahub, consider moving along?
Ahem
Who is forcing you to read this site and the comments?
Unless you are being treated to a bit of the ultrahub, consider moving along?
Well
It is HIS horse, to be honest. Perhaps you need to get off of it?
No means no
And I want to go home means I want to go home.
Do you find the song frustrating because it doesn’t say that?
I find this song fascinating because it says nothing either way
And because until about two weeks ago, it was all fine and dandy before the SJW troll farmers planted the meme that it isn't.
And because even feminists sometimes play hard to get and/or like alpha males.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201812/feminists...
FWIW
I've found the song to be annoying and suggestive of sexual assult for as long as I've had the wherewithal to understand such things. People recognizing the meaning of the lyrics isnt anything new.
So
You recognize the meaning of the lyrics, and that they don't mean what you feel them to be suggestive of, but you're going to go with your feelings anyway?
This is not a new complaint
This is not new from 2 weeks ago. People have been complaining about it for a very long time.
I like the song and don't find it to be about rape because I know from whence it came. However, there is at least one version with which I am uncomfortable (Willie Nelson and Norah Jones, if you need to know). But that is a personal issue for me.
People have been bitching
People have been bitching about this song for at least 15 years. It's not like the National Committee of Concerned Liberals had a meeting and decided to adopt this as a new gambit to ruin everybody's Christmas in 2018.
Anybody who's gone to college in the modern era knows that drunk people can't effectively consent to sex, and that if they pulled what the guy in this song is trying to pull, and if the other party had second thoughts upon sobering up, they might get expelled and/or brought up on criminal charges. This is not complicated. That said, I've always thought that it's pretty embarrassing when guys complain about this--it's like admitting that getting somebody shitfaced is the only way they can get laid.
Like most PC things that people rail against, it all basically comes down to not being an asshole or supporting asshole-ish behavior. Imagine it's your mother, sister, or daughter in that room--how do you feel about the guy in the song now?
Difference several generations make
Older women will tell you that a big part of the problem in this song and in society of that era: women were not allowed to say YES I WANT THIS.
That muddied it up for everything.
Now? NO means NO. Then? NO meant "I have no agency to be honest about what I really want, be that YES or NO".
White Xmas
Is racist in your eyes also?
I've decided people SUCK!!#
Then go live on an island
Then go live on an island, with no other people. Ideally one where it never snows so you'll be able to continue your disingenuous pretense that you don't know what "white" means in context of the song.
Santa knows all
When your sleeping and awake.
Is he now a peeping tom?
I'll stay here Thank you. I've earned it the hard way.
I mean, since you asked...
A lot of Christmas-celebrating parents are choosing to move away from the literal Santa trope because they don't wish to portray any/all of the messages of normalizing surveillance, love and joy being contingent upon meeting vaguely defined standards, or middle-class children's possessions magically appearing while others don't get much. Many folks have shifted to presenting Santa as less literal and more of a just a sweet concept, like mother nature.
(And then there's that fucking spy elf...)
One Question
How many 60+ year old women have you talked to about this?
I think you might get a more nuanced take on what it meant at the time.
She never says she wants to go.
I just checked the lyrics again. She never actually says she wants to go. She says she *ought* to go; she says that others will gossip and talk; her mother will worry, etc.
Right
Because when the song came out, women weren't empowered to just be like, damn right I want to stay and fuck. So the norm was to be wishy-washy about it. But now, we're teaching our children to clearly assert what they do and don't want and to listen to and respect others' wishes in this regard. So today, it's not a great message for a guy to respond to a woman sayiing "I really can't" with begging her to change her mind.
Begging her to change her mind?
That's the bar for what date rape is, begging?
I take it persistence is an admirable quality only insofar as it is on display on the floor of the United States Senate, and never in interpersonal relationships?
Huh?
Listen, bub. If you don't treat men in at work in special "flirting" ways, don't do it to women.
Also, RTFL: she's not "in a bar" in the song. Doing this in public is much different than in your dorm room or "the fuck room" of your fraternity house.
One more time
Show us exactly how badly your mother raised you when it comes to the simple concepts of respect and consent.
Good point
Context changes the content. Maybe the lyrics need an update.
E.G.:
Lady Gaga and Joseph-Gordon Levitt
Lady Gaga and Joseph-Gordon Levitt have a version where the roles in the song are reversed and she plays the one who can't take No for an answer.
[https://youtu.be/ZtoW4aV-CIc]
Burying the lede
On the MUPPETS
Also, maybe fix that bracket.
Oops Muppets Baby its Cold
https://youtu.be/ZtoW4aV-CIc
Not first time
There's an old movie version where they do that.
Seriously folks, this is about flirting, not date rape.
Personally I love the Zooey Deschanel version.
Seriously indeed
Some snowflakes melt at such a low temperature that a smile alone is literally rape, let alone flirting.
Who is the snowflake?
I think you can express yourself in something other than Proud Boy whining points.
I don't think you do
Strictly speaking.
She doesn't do Proud Boy whining points?
Um, why would she?
You are the snowflake
You melt and vanish if you can't follow simple rules of not raping.
The rules are simple: No means no. Keep the "sexy" out of the workplace (do you say/do things to the males in your office, too? No? Don't play the "just flirting" card when interacting with women).
Oh, and don't rape. See "no means no".
When you graduate and get that first real job, you will find these simple tips to be useful.
Please look at the lyrics
And let us know where she actually says no.
But Stevil...
...what was she wearing?
Guys like you never learn and never change.
Wow
Talk about overthinking things.
Maybe we should outlaw every movie from the 40's and 50's since they almost universally have a man reaching out to kiss a woman and then after a few seconds, she either decides she likes it or just surrenders to his manly force.
It's a cute song. That's it. Try not reading into things so much.
You know what, I'll take the bait
If she's got her tits half out, her lower thighs on full display, and shoes that by rights ought to be banned under the UN conventions on torture...that says something completely different than if she wearing clothing that's not inappropriate for a board meeting, parent-teacher conference, or dinner with mom and dad.
Flip it around: If a dude is wearing a suit and tie, does that connote something different than a Disco Stu with with his shirt unbuttoned and a monogrammed gold chain around his neck whose bling is outclassed only by the shine of the goo in his receding hairline and the conspicuous band of white skin on his left ring finger?
Not that looks are everything but given that these hypothetical guys are who they are, who's more likely to be the creep?
Hey Frat Boy
Grow up.
Flipping this
Where does she actually say "yes"?
We have a bingo
You get to write ur own ending to this song. Probably one reason it's popular. Go where your mind takes you. Yes, no maybe another time.
Except the pervs. For them it ends in rape. Whoa.
Interesting. The trolls seem to believe this is a college forum.
Not the only anonpost here making it sound like anyone who likes this song (or doesn't object to it, per se) is a horny teenager still in university.
Not very sophisticated thinking either. The anonpost up top replying to me seems to have confused "the bar for date rape" for an actual bar where one might go trolling for tail as opposed to the intended (and at least to me it seems obvious) meaning of "bar" as in metaphorical hurdle of minimum evidence to clear for something to be true.
And also the occasional odd reference to professional behavior in the workplace as opposed to an explicitly intimate setting that is implied by a woman who agrees to meet a man in the privacy of his home. Home seems to be taken to mean "frat house fuck room."
I can see how in college, the distinction between workplace and private residence is blurred...what with the communal living arrangements and the near constant presence of the 9-5 crowd after hours in what is nominally the home.
Two possibilities:
1. "Russian" internet trolls with their wires crossed
2. American college student trolls thinking they understand what life after 21 actually looks like based only on their experience at age 21 and under.
In either case:
1. Grow up.
2. Enjoy the music.
I don't have any particular
I don't have any particular animus for the song -- I'm not a huge fan but recognize it as a relic of another era -- but at least now I know which stations are run by alt-right "freeze peach" nutjobs. Thanks!
Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton - "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton - "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBFk-Y-4Jo
Jo Stafford and the Starlighters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=805Viwahf18
My new favorite station
My new favorite station
You can replay the show on your computer
Go here and click on the "play archive" link. Use the track listing to figure out what parts you want to hear.
I love WMFO
Only a college station like MFO can pull a stunt like this now. This type of thing used to be the life's blood of progressive radio. And I miss the days of the late Mikey Dee who played local bands on MFO and was equitable to all, in direct contrast to elitist club booking agents that were operating in those days and their impenetrable clique of inner-circle bands.
Another interpretation
Rebecca Watson’s take on the song, showing why it’s actually pro-feminist and not pro-rape:
http://skepchick.org/2018/12/no-baby-cold-outside-not-rapey-related-rape...
Cold outside anyway
Me (at family Xmas): This song is ... rapey
Drunken Great Aunt: "Eh? She wants to fuck him. She's gonna fuck him and then walk home in the cold anyway. That's why patriarchy sucks shit."
I can’t give you anything but love, Baby. Bringing Up Baby 1938
I can’t give you anything but love, Baby... - Bringing Up Baby (1938)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MT9ozz35nY
Good for them!
Trying to ban this song is just silly!
Where do people learn words these days
Since when is "a couple of radio stations have decided to pull it from the rotation" on the same continent as a "ban"? Geez Louise.
Nobody has suggested a
Nobody has suggested a government ban. But some radio stations certainly are banning it, and some people are advocating for more stations to ban it as well.
So
buy it on iTunes if you need to hear it that badly
Yeah, that bastion of free speech, iTunes
Once they ban the whackjobs, the only thing left to ban is stuff like "offensive" christmas songs.
So...
...you want to compel businesses to carry products that they don't want to carry?
That's not the point.
That's not the point.
We were talking about whether it's a ban or not if a radio station won't let its DJs play it.
Concrete thinkers
It's a popular strawman argument among concrete thinkers
A: This song/book/movie has some problematic elements (which, if you don't have your head up your ass, you notice that most everything does and is probably worth discussing)
B: YOU HAVE TO GO AND BAN EVERYTHING DON'T YOU
A: ...what?
Broken concrete
After a while, us concrete thinkers tend to notice when the self-appointed social betters make a lifestyle out of "national conversations" and pointing problematic elements in everything.
So a more accurate rephrasing of 'B', from a card-carrying knuckledragger is:
"You have to go and lay a guilt trip on everyone, don't you"
Because well...you do. It's your life blood.
Oh Roman, stop projecting
No one can make you feel guilty, and if you do feel guilty, there's probably a reason. Show some personal responsibility for a change.
Most you could call flirting, but it gets Cosby towards the end
"The neighbors might think (Baby it's bad out there)
Say what's in this drink?"
It's an old joke
It's an old comedy line involving someone trying to excuse his or her own departure from societal expectations by blaming it on a drink.
Without the video it's tough
If the glass was martini shaped, would it be Cosby-esque? Nope. Given the era and the "scene" painted, I've always heard it as being obviously a mixed drink -- in which case, it's all part of the suggestive flintiness and not at all rapey.
If you want to visualize it as Cosby, you certainly can. We have no idea what the physical circumstance of the beverage transaction actually is...
I'll take "Baby It's Cold
I'll take "Baby It's Cold Outside" over "Santa Baby"anytime.
What say youse?
Moving over to Cambridge ...
Ron once more alerts us, this time to the two-hour Baby playlist at WMBR tonight.
genuine question, no trolling
are you triggered? like, really? does this really bother you, adam? is it really newsworthy?
I find it interesting
Triggered? Hah.
Maybe you lead a very cloistered life, and have missed the fact that this song has been the matter of considerable debate of late. But that's something that makes something like this newsworthy to me.
And maybe you're new to Universal Hub, but I run stuff all the time that would never make the Globe. It's one of the perks of running my own site. If you're triggered by things you don't want to read about, maybe you'll find something else on the site to pique your interest. Worst case and you're triggered to the point of inconsolability, there are plenty of other sites in the sea.
nah. just don't seem to get
nah. just don't seem to get worked up about nonsense things like you seem to. but to each their own i guess
So what do you get worked up over?
Chances are some of us think that the things you get "worked up over" are nonsense. So go ahead, give it your best shot.
"Making America great again,"
"Making America great again," I'd wager.
Question
Just how does posting an item of note equal 'get(ting) worked up about'?
Can't it ever be just posting an item of note?
No, it shows why college radio stations are a local treasure
No corporate-owned commercial radio station would ever do this, but two of our local student radio stations did. That is something to be thankful for.
Baby it’s cold outride should
Baby it’s cold outride should be a theme song of the cold miserable tundra known as MA.
American Thought Police
In Russia, when the government doesn't like some music, they arrest the performers (rap music is the current problem for them). But here, the Thought Police don't even need the government. They just mention that they don't like a song, and no one plays it except a few courageous radio stations. I think the American Thought Police should offer to help the Russian government control its population. They seem to have a sufficiently tight hold on all of us here.
That's a good point
My favorite Christmas song is Tom Waits' "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis", but I've noticed that every radio station and Target commercial refuses to play it. I also feel censored and oppressed by the Thought Police, as there is no way to listen to this song unless it's on the PA at the mall
I heard this one today
Liked it.
And you've just highlighted the difference
We don't generally need government intervention to accomplish respect for people. Our current "government" is actually in favor of rape, racism, ableism, transphobia, etc. But fortunately, a good chunk of our populace realizes that if something is disrespectful to certain folks, maybe we shouldn't do it.
Actually, they're just afraid
of the damage the politically correct can do to their lives. You don't really believe that people's silence is the same as agreement on these many issues, do you?
Translation
They don't want to see any consequences from acting like a total asshole to "those" people.
Private radio stations can
Private radio stations can play--or not play--whatever they want to based upon whatever they think will get them the most listeners in a competitive media market. It's their First Amendment right. Have a problem with free speech and free enterprise, Comrade?
You're trying to say that a radio station can't make its own decisions on what to play and we're the Thought Police? Guess what: a station in this position takes a look at it's listening base, realizes that whatever it's decided to do is going to piss off somebody, and figures out who's anger is going to cost them the most money. If they choose not to play that song, then your side came on out the short end of that equation. Pretty un-American to tell a business it can't make a business decision not to play a song...
Here's another song where the
Here's another song where the lyrics can be interpreted poorly. In this version Devyn Rush makes it all her own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvxK_ZJmz6E
They like to chat about the dresses they will wear tonight
They chew the fat about their tresses and the neighbor's fight,
Inconsequential things that men don't really care to know
Become essential things that women find so ap-pro-pos,
But that's a dame, they're all the same it's just a game they call it
Girl talk, girl talk
They all meow about the ups and downs of all their friends,
The who, the how, the why, they dish the dirt, it never ends.
The weaker sex, the "speaker" sex we mortal males behold
But though we joke, we wouldn't trade you for a ton of gold.
Thanks for this!
It's not quite on the subject, but thanks for pointing us to Devyn Rush. I had never heard of her, but what a great singer she is.