I love Christmas music. When I say the word love, I don’t mean it lightly. You can often find me playing my Holiday Pandora station beginning in mid-July and I can confidently sing all the words to just about every Christmas Carol. I love Christmas music.

However, there has always been one song that is a bit off-putting to me. It is a song that’s considered a holiday classic and is a staple on every Christmas Radio Station.

A Christmas song? Off-putting? What?

That song is “Baby It’s Cold Outside”.

There are dozens of popular renditions of it, but it was originally a feature in the musical “Neptune’s Daughter” in 1949 and was written by Frank Loesser in 1944. Here is just one version of the song:

On the surface, it’s a cozy winter tune about a couple spending a night together. But if you truly listen to the lyrics, there’s a bit of a different idea and its a bit of a troubling one.

Female: I ought to say no, no, no

Male: Mind if I move in closer?

(Yes, I think she minds)

Male: What's the sense in hurting my pride?

(You’re right sir, she should submit to you in the name of your pride)

**And my favorite (and by that I mean least favorite)**

Female: “Say, what’s in this drink?”

(Um, excuse me?)

Now do I suspect that Loesser meant anything more for this tune than what it was originally thought to be? Not in the slightest. However, that’s the problem. The implicit meaning of this encourages the behavior between men and women that we, as a society, are trying to rid of. These subliminal messages, teaching women that their answer doesn’t matter and teaching mean not to listen to it, are the most dangerous encouragement of all.

Like I said, I know that the man who wrote this song did not mean it to be taken as an encouragement for sexual harassment, but essentially the message to be taken away from this song is the idea that even if a woman says no, it is acceptable to try to pressure her into doing what it is that you’d like. This is the idea of male superiority and dominance over women.

We’ve made a lot of progress about our ideas of consent and gender equality since 1944. This being said, it was about time for a revamp of this classic Christmas song…

WALA!

A remake has been made by Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski! This new, improved version can be found on Sound Cloud:

The song opens with:

Female: “I really can’t stay”

Male: “Baby I’m fine with that”

(WOW! He respects her answer!)

Other lyric exchanges are made such as:

Female: "I ought to say no, no, no"

Male: "You reserve the right to say no"

(What a respectful man)

And that horrible drink line is changed to:

Female: "Say, what is this drink?"

Male: "Pomegranate LaCroix"

Good choice in beverage, tasteful choice in lyric.

Finally, we can enjoy holiday music and support the idea of proper consent at the same time! Be sure to add the new and improved version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" to your Christmas playlist! Happy listening and Happy Holidays!