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Baby, it's not so cold outside

Editor's note: This editorial that first appeared in the Dec. 23, 2016 edition of The Citizen has been updated for today in light of the CBC's announcement Tuesday to resume playing the controversial Christmas song after banning it last month.
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Editor's note: This editorial that first appeared in the Dec. 23, 2016 edition of The Citizen has been updated for today in light of the CBC's announcement Tuesday to resume playing the controversial Christmas song after banning it last month.

Christmas just isn't Christmas anymore without a fresh debate about Baby It's Cold Outside.

This Christmas carol for adults featuring a call and response between a woman who thinks it's time to go and the man who wants her to stay has been covered by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Sheryl Crow to Ray Charles and Willie Nelson.

It's the closest thing to a romantic and sexy holiday song out there, even though it makes no reference to Christmas at all.

Michael Bubl and Idina Menzel recorded a traditional version of the song a few years ago while two gay male characters sang it on the TV show Glee and Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward reversed the genders when singing it in 2011.

Seen solely through the context of rape culture, however, the lyrics are problematic from the "say, what's in this drink?" line to "I ought to say, no, no, no, sir" and his response of "mind if I move in closer?"

Seen in isolation from the rest of the song, those lines are worrisome but the entire lyric reveals ambivalence in the female character, who is clearly smitten by the "nice and warm" welcome she's received in the man's home. Her interest in staying is obvious but she worries about what people will think if she stays over. In that light, some people have gone so far as to interpret the song as a feminist anthem depicting the social pressures on women to repress their sexual desire.

Spot the clever song that can be interpreted any number of ways.

Song lyrics have always been places for singers past and present to challenge their audiences.

The Police's Every Breath You Take is a first-person take on a stalker but Sting's soft voice and the musical accompaniment either makes it more sinister or more palatable, depending on your perspective.

One of Sarah McLachlan's best-known hits, Possession, is a blatant rape fantasy, with its terrifying chorus: "I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard, I'll take your breath away, and after, I'd wipe away the tears, just close your eyes dear."

Canadian rockers Evans Blue covered it with a male lead vocal. The arrangement gives the song an accompanying musical ferocity but there's no getting around that lyric, no matter how emotionally sensitive he tries to sound.

Modern music, particularly heavy rock, is littered with lyrics of sexual conquest from Nine Inch Nail's Closer to Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love to virtually every song by AC/DC. And the blatant sexuality of many of today's top hip-hop records would either make Robert Plant blush or jealous he didn't write the lyric first.

That's not an argument to just get over it about Baby, It's Cold Outside but to put the song, first recorded in 1944, into both a musical, historical and social context.

Then and now, saying "what's in this drink?" is a winking inference that whatever is done or said next, it's not my fault, it's the booze talking.

The repartee of Baby It's Cold Outside also displays familiarity between the male and female characters, in stark contrast to the regular one-night love affairs sung solely from the male perspective in so many contemporary songs.

Seen in the light of an already established relationship, the song is a playful and sexy interaction between two equals. Within the safety of a romance where the boundaries have already been set, the pretend tug of war between one partner that wants sex and the other partner threatening to withhold it adds extra spice to the encounter. That would explain why the song remains so popular among couples.

The song works to this day, not because of its creepiness but because of the tension of competing desires of two adults both trying to do the right thing in the moment. The song ends with the tension unresolved, leaving it up to the listener to decide whether she stays or goes.

Baby, It's Cold Outside is musical genius precisely because of its ability to absorb whatever agenda is in the mind of the listener, from innocent sweetheart to sexual predator.

The song is not completely one or the other, however, resting comfortably in that alluring middle ground of guilty pleasure for both parties.

Will they or won't they is a story that will never get old, no matter how many Christmases go by.

-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout