Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting Sing Baby It's Cold Outside

Songfacts®:

• 1 of the classic Tin Pan Aisle duets, "Baby It'south Cold Outside" has go a holiday favorite, just it was originally a party song written past Frank Loesser for him and his wife, Lynn, to perform for the purpose of entertaining guests. The Loessers knew their fashion around a song: Frank composed Guys and Dolls and many other musicals; Lynn, a quondam nightclub vocalizer, co-produced the musical The Most Happy Fella, which Frank wrote.

  In 1949, "Babe It'south Cold Exterior" was used in the motion picture Neptune's Girl, where it was performed twice; once with Ricardo Montalban trying to persuade Esther Williams to stay, and once again with Betty Garrett trying to detain Ruby-red Skelton. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year.

• Frank Loesser wrote this vocal in 1944 for a housewarming political party he and his married woman were throwing after moving into the Hotel Navarro in New York. Their rendition proved very successful and the couple continued to perform the song at parties they attended in New York and Hollywood. Their son John Loesser recalled to The Palm Beach Mail service December 7, 2010: "It was something that songwriters did in those days. If you were invited to a political party, y'all were expected to sing for your supper. Oscar Levant, Roger Edens, Harry Warren – they all did information technology. But the song was a individual social piece for parties. My mother just loved both the song and the fact that information technology was hers. And it kept them in champagne and caviar."

  Eventually, MGM offered Frank Loesser good money for the song, and used it in Neptune's Daughter. However his wife was not impressed. "He went home and told my mother and she was furious," John recalled to The Palm Beach Mail. "Y'all sold our song for Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban!," she complained to her hubby. "I felt as betrayed as if I'd caught him in bed with some other woman," she complained to their children.

  For a long time afterwards, Lynn would but sigh, "Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban!"

• This song is a bespeak-counterpoint betwixt a human being and a woman, each with very clear goals: She wants to go home, he wants her to stay. In the finish, it'southward not articulate what happens, as they join together to sing the chorus.

  The song is by and large heard as whimsical fun, merely the guy'southward persistence is a little troubling. When she asks, "What's in this drink?" it makes you lot wonder if he's trying to get her drunk - or worse.

  To keep it from sounding predatory, the female person voice in the song is ordinarily a potent one, making information technology articulate that it is her decision.

• Several recordings of this song emerged in 1949, the near pop of which was by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer, backed by the Paul Weston Orchestra. Whiting was a popular vocalizer of the era, but Mercer was better known as a lyricist - he later on penned the words to "Moon River." Their version went to #4 on the Billboard chart that year, but renditions past Dinah Shore & Buddy Clark, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Hashemite kingdom of jordan, and Don Cornell & Laura Leslie all charted that year as well.

  Oddly, it was the summer of 1949 when the song was hitting: Every chart entry happened between May and August. Neptune'south Daughter, which popularized it in film, was released that June.

• After a wave of recordings in 1949, the vocal didn't get much attending until 1957, when Mae West and Stone Hudson performed it in a steamy duet at the University Awards ceremony. This induced more covers, including a version by Ray Charles and Betty Carter that went to #62 in the US.

  There was merely a smattering of new recordings in the '70s and '80s, only Bette Midler and James Caan gave it new life when they sang it in the 1991 movie For The Boys (it plays over the terminate credits). Robert Palmer & Carnie Wilson and Vanessa Williams & Bobby Caldwell are some of the '90s pairings.

  In the 2000s, "Baby, Information technology's Cold Outside" found its manner onto many Christmas playlists, with the song recorded in every conceivable format. Lady Antebellum hit #103 with their version in 2008, the Glee Cast reached #57 in 2010, and Haley Reinhart & Casey Abrams made #120 in 2011.

• In 1999 Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews covered this, reaching #17 in the Britain singles chart. Cerys Matthews was the lead vocalizer of the Welsh band Catatonia, who had several hits in the belatedly 1990s including "Mulder And Scully" and "Route Rage." Either Matthews had a deep adoration for her boyfriend Welsh vocalist, or there was some clever marketing going on. Her previous single release before this duet had been a recording with the Liverpool ring Space, the Summit 10 hit "The Carol of Tom Jones."

• This song appears twice in the 2003 movie Elf. First, Zooey Deschanel sings information technology with Volition Ferrell, then a version by Deschanel and Leon Redbone plays during the closing credits Redbone was as well the voice of Leon the Snowman). The Deschanel/Redbone version renewed interest in the song and got a lot of airplay on Christmas playlists. A few years later on, Deschanel got her sing on again when she joined M. Ward in the duo She & Him.

  In Elf, James Caan plays Buddy's naughty-listing dad who has to be coerced into singing loud for all to hear (information technology's the all-time way to spread Christmas cheer). In 1991, he sang "Babe It'southward Cold Outside" for the moving picture For The Boys.

• Various parodies of this song reverse the scenario, with the guy trying to get the girl to leave. This was done in a 2013 Sabbatum Dark Live skit where Jimmy Fallon tries to become Cecily Stiff out of his apartment afterwards a tryst. "So, should I phone call y'all a cab," he sings, to which she replies, "Oh, just it'south common cold outside."

• Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé took this song to #1 on the Adult Gimmicky chart in 2014. The video chop-chop racked upwards 10 million YouTube views despite neither vocaliser appearing in the prune - child actors Emily Carey and Harry Collett acted out the song in an elegant hotel setting. The song appeared on Menzel'due south album Holiday Wishes.

  Also in 2014, Seth MacFarlane and Sara Bareilles took the vocal to #10 on the AC chart after performing it at the Rockefeller Eye tree lighting ceremony.

• Miss Piggy and the trip the light fantastic toe star Rudolf Nureyev sing this within a steam room in a 1978 episode of The Muppet Evidence. Miss Piggy is the aggressor.

• The Minnesota musicians Josiah Lemanski and Lydia Liza did a reinterpretation of this vocal in 2016 with the lyrics contradistinct to make the storyline more consensual. Instead of pressing her to stay, the guy replies with lines similar, "Hoping you get home safe" and "Text me at your primeval convenience."

  They wrote the song in about 45 minutes and recorded it the same day. They put it online and the local NPR radio station The Current started playing it. CNN had the couple on for an interview and information technology snowballed in the printing, renewing the debate (and larger cultural context) of whether or not the original version is threatening to women.

• In 2018, some radio stations, including WDOK in Cleveland, dropped this vocal in response to the #MeToo motility. Earlier in the year, Bill Cosby was sent to jail, accused of sexual set on by a number of women who claimed he drugged their drinks. With that story in the headlines, the "hey, what's in this potable?" line carried a criminal connotation. "Bill Cosby ruined it for everybody," Frank Loesser's daughter, Susan, said.

  Many stood by the song, which became a political wedge. To show their support, the Louisville, Kentucky radio station WAKY played five dissimilar versions for two sequent hours on December 16, earning plaudits from listeners and lots of free publicity. Some stations that pulled the song, including KOIT in San Francisco and KOSI in Denver, concluded upwards reinstating information technology afterward listener backlash.

  The controversy earned the song a lot more plays, and on December 22, Dean Martin's version ranked at #10 on Billboard's Digital Song Sales chart.

• In 2019, John Fable and Kelly Clarkson took on this song in a version with lyrics where the guy is supportive and respectful, never pressuring her to stay. Clarkson sings the original lyrics, but Legend offers completely different rejoinders, always keeping his cool and sometimes providing comic relief:

  My mom volition start to worry
  - I'll call the car and tell him to hurry

  My blood brother will be there at the door
  - He loves my music, baby, I'm certain

  Only maybe simply a cigarette more
  - That's something we should probably explore

  In this setting, Fable is giving her an piece of cake exit, but she's not taking it.

  Legend wrote the new lyric with Natasha Rothwell, a writer/actress known for her work on the TV series Insecure. He and Clarkson performed the vocal on The Voice, where they were judges. Fable knew not everyone would get the joke. He posted on Twitter when the song was released: "A welcome update or 'PC Civilisation run amok & destroying everything neat in the history of music?' You decide."

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Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/margaret-whiting-and-johnny-mercer/baby-its-cold-outside