The lovely version of Baby It’s Cold Outside on Alex Pangman’s new Christmas Spirits album, a duet with Tory Cassis, sent me scurrying to my library to revisit The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser by Robert Kimball and Steve Nelson.
This song has incredible legs, having been recorded by everyone from Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban, who debuted it in Williams’ movie Neptune’s Daughter, to Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton, Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton and Ray Charles and Betty Carter among many, many others. There’s a duet with Marc Jordan of the song on Emilie-Clare Barlow’s new Xmas disc as well.
In the comedy category, there are versions by Homer and Jethro and Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.
But the song was sung first by its composer, Loesser, and his wife, the former Lynn Garland. They debuted it at a housewarming party in New York in 1944 and blew everyone away, prompting partygoers to demand the couple sing it over and over again.
For years after, it was the Loessers’ entrée into the finest cocktail parties on both coasts and they took full advantage.
The song is so enduring because of the coy interplay between the male protagonist (the wolf as Loesser called him), who is trying to convince his girlfriend that the weather is so bad she should stay and cuddle, and the girl (the mouse), who is torn between her own temptation to accept and the social consequences if she does.
The classic tug-of-love is mounted on an enchanting melody. But it is the overlapping dialogue and the feeling that you are eavesdropping on a real conversation that truly sets the song apart.
Loesser’s wife, who had come to regard the song as the couple’s delicious personal property, was devastated when Loesser decided to sell it to the movies. “Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban!!!,” she cried. But, according to daughter Susan’s biography of her Dad, he had to release it. “If I don’t let go of 'Baby', I’ll begin to think I can never write another song as good as I think this one is.”
Although it’s always seemed like a quaint, casual bit of pop pleasure, some interpreters have found a way to assign the most malevolent spin possible to it, equating it to an homage to date rape. (See http://www.mormonmommywars.com/?p=504 and many responding posts).
My personal favourite recording of the song is the one of the first, by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. Mercer wrote some excellent songs with Whiting’s father Richard, including Hooray for Hollywood and Too Marvelous For Words.
As justifiably famous as he is for his lyrics and songs, it’s easy to forget that the Georgia native was a wonderfully expressive singer, who had a huge string of hit songs.
In the knowing hands of Mercer and Whiting, Baby It’s Cold Outside is a diverting, delicious trifle that is as clever and cosy as the living room where the wolf has invited the mouse to play.
Here’s hoping your holiday includes a little:
“Listen to that fireplace roar/ Put some records on while I pour.”