The daughter of the composer behind ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ has blamed the recent controversy surrounding the Christmas classic’s predatory lyrics on actor Bill Cosby.
Susan Loesser, daughter of the late composer Frank Loesser, said Thursday on NBC News that Cosby – who was convicted in April of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman – is ‘ruining it for everybody’.
The famous song, written in 1944, takes the form of a duet, with a man trying to convince a protesting woman to stay over because it’s ‘cold outside’.
The daughter of the composer behind ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ has spoken out against the recent controversy surrounding the Christmas classic
Critics took exception to its lyrics, citing the moment he tells her ‘don’t hold out’ and particularly when she asks: ‘Say, what’s in this drink?’
‘Bill Cosby is ruining it for everybody,’ Susan Loesser complained Thursday on NBC News.
‘Ever since Cosby was accused of drugging women, I hear the date rape thing all the time’.
Susan Loesser said Thursday on NBC News that Bill Cosby – who was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman – is ‘ruining it for everybody’
‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside,’ has been covered by Michael Bublé, Idina Menzel, James Taylor, Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews, but this year Star 102 Cleveland radio banned all versions of song from its Christmas playlist.
Glenn Anderson, a host at the radio station, says that although the song is from another era, its lyrics feel ‘manipulative and wrong’.
‘The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, but in a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place’, he said in a statement.
Loesser says her father ‘would be furious’ that his lyrics, in today’s climate, have taken on connotations they were never meant to when he penned them in the 1940s.
‘People used to say, ‘What’s in this drink?’ as a joke,’ Loesser explained.
‘You know, this drink is going straight to my head, so what’s in this drink?
‘Back then it didn’t mean you drugged me,’ she added.
The daughter of Broadway legend Frank Loesser (pictured) said she was upset about the furore because ‘it’s a song my father wrote for him and my mother to sing at parties’
Critics took exception to the ‘Baby it’s cold outside’ lyrics, citing the moment he tells her ‘don’t hold out’ and particularly when she asks: ‘Say, what’s in this drink?’
Loesser said she was upset about the furore because ‘it’s a song my father wrote for him and my mother to sing at parties’.
However she said she also understood that song strikes a different tone now following last year’s historic Me Too movement, which saw both male and female victims of sexual abuse and harassment come forward to name powerful perpetrators in a number of industries.
Cosby was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison in September for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman
‘Absolutely I get it,’ she said. ‘But I think it would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time.
‘It was written in 1944. It was a different time.’
CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King, who described herself as a ‘big supporter and proponent of the Me Too movement’, said Thursday that she was worried about a nation losing its sense of humor.
Echoing Loesser, King said: ‘It’s a Christmas song that was written years ago, and you have to look at the intent of the song… to me, it’s a very flirtatious back-and-forth between the two of them.’
Cosby was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison in September for drugging and attacking a woman, but more than 60 others accused him of historic crimes including rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct.