Stop Ruining Classic Songs - Tumblr Posts

Yes, so much of this. In today's "me-too" movement people rarely stop and think about the timeframe in which songs were written and the meanings behind the words. They take it at face value and only hear what they want to hear: a man coercing a woman into sex. But this song is so much more than this and none of this at the same time.

If you listen to it from a reversed perspective or if the two singers were the same sex, it sounds like it is what it is: one person helping another to come up with excuses on why they stayed, so society won't be too harsh in their criticisms of an unmarried person sleeping over at another's home.

So can we all agree that this song is a classic of a closed-minded bygone era, and just let it be what it is: a cute tongue-in-cheek conversation between two consenting adults?

And for God's sake, leave the lyrics alone?!

your yearly reminder that Baby It’s Cold Outside is a song about a woman having CONSENSUAL sex, at a time when premarital sex was frowned upon. The female singer is offering up the token demurrals society expects her to, because it’s expected, not bc she doesn’t fully intend to stay and have awesome sex with a dude she’s into. The male singer knows this, and is in turn offering her an excuse to give to the neighbors in the morning (“it was too cold for me to go home, the only responsible thing to do was spend the night at his place. because of the weather, get your minds out of the gutter”). A 1950s audience would have understood all this, but the nuance gets lost in a modern age where women are actually allowed to say yes when they mean it.  

Also the “hey what’s in this drink” thing was a common joke at the time, where the punchline was that there was in fact nothing in the drink. the woman’s making a joke that she wouldn’t do this if she was sober, oh goodness no! it’s only a joke bc both she and the man are in on the punchline: she is sober, and is only staying bc she wants to