Mary Kenny
Bing Crosby
Photo: Northwest Public Broadcasting A famous popular song, Baby, it’s Cold Outside – written in 1944 – has been banned on several American and Canadian radio networks for some time now because the male-female narrative implies a ‘lack of consent’ on the part of the female.
Musically, it’s a great tune, cleverly syncopated between the male and female voice, as the man tries to coax the woman to stay “a little longer”, because “baby, it’s cold outside”.
The lyrics, written by Frank Loesser, follow a trope of seduction which have occurred since the first troubadours sought to pull at the heartstrings of the maiden they desired. The lady says she must away: the guy asks her to stay: she says her mother will worry, he says “what’s your hurry?”.
She says “my sister will be suspicious/my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious”; he says “gosh, you look delicious!”
Another drink – and another cigarette – is suggested, and the chorus, each time, ends with “Baby, it’s cold outside!”
Seduction
The lyrics, however, have now been rewritten by John Legend and Kelly Clarkson to accommodate the consent issue: the male voice will now say “it’s your body, it’s your choice”, a phrase seldom invoked in the history of musical seduction.
And yet the original lyrics could be analysed as a warning against the perils of inveiglement, once warmly ensconced in an apartment while the temperature drops outside. Arguments against going out in the cold will be deployed! Inducements to stay will be employed! In a tuneful, and quite humorous way, Loesser’s original lyrics carry a warning which isn’t a million miles from that issued by the nuns in our convent school back in the day: don’t put yourself in the way of temptation, girls!
We could even suggest that the original lyrics of Baby, it’s Cold Outside are more honest than the new, politically correct version: seduction exists: be aware of how it can happen.
Though the version (available on YouTube) with Bing Crosby and Doris Day actually sounds quite larky and inoffensive – in contrast, as fans have pointed out, to some modern lyrics about drugs and violence.
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For most of recorded history, Britain has been a richer country than Ireland, and this has always made the relationship unequal – even leave aside the imbalance of political and military power.
But today, according to the Spectator magazine, drawing on statistics from the World Bank, Ireland is richer than Britain, per head of the population. In 2018, per capita wealth in Ireland was $59,360: in Britain it was $41,330.
Back in 1972, Gross National Income per capita was $3,170 in Britain and $2,070 in Ireland. This disparity continued until 1998, but by 2008, Ireland had begun to overtake Britain by more than $2,000 annually. Now the difference has enlarged by over $18,000! Yet in both countries there are people sleeping in the streets in the capital cities.
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Art’s in the eye of the beholder
An old lady in her 90s in Compiegne, France had a holy picture hanging in her kitchen for many years. When her home came to be sold a sharp-eyed auctioneer decided to have the painting evaluated, and it turns out to be one of the most valuable pieces of Renaissance art in existence – ‘Christ Mocked’ [above] by Cimabue, described by an expert as “a legend of western painting”. (He flourished around 1280.) The picture subsequently sold for €24m at auction.
Both seller and buyer have remained anonymous, but we might wonder how the 90-year-old’s family reacted to this windfall. Grateful…or furious that grandma hadn’t realised the value of the picture earlier?
And yet, for her, the value of the painting was that it was a meaningful holy picture which she liked to have in her kitchen. Now it has passed from veneration into the more monetary realms of art acquisition.