Six versions of 'Baby It's Cold Outside', ranked from worst to best

Consent, power, & storytelling through a Christmassy lens

The OG Cold Outside duo in the 1949 musical comedy Neptune’s Daughter

Last week a friend forwarded me the Kelly Clarkson/John Legend version of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ with an accompanying message: they had heard on the grapevine that it was one of my favourite Christmas songs, but that I found the lyrics problematic, so thought I might enjoy this feminist re-write.

I found this funny for a number of reasons: firstly, they heard this on the grapevine? Gossip really is thin on the ground in your thirties - but secondly, because I’ve never really had a problem with the song per se (I’ll get to why). I imagined a community of my friends, getting together to worry about me worrying about ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, mind-mapping possible solutions and coming up gold with this Kelly Clarkson number. But, grateful for the thought, I listened to the cover - and weirdly found it less feminist than the original. In Clarkson’s version, her lines stay largely the same - ‘I simply should go’ - and Legend’s are replaced with affirming solutions: ‘text me when you get home’. However, because one half of the song has been switched out, with the other kept the same, it doesn’t scan as dialogue anymore, and so it’s hard to believe that the characters are talking to each other (why does Clarkson keep asserting she has to leave after Legend has already called her a cab?). This makes them feel like they exist in separate worlds, each giving their own private performance - and without a feeling of complicity and conversation, I don’t understand why Kelly wants to stay in the first place, which is surely what any feminist reading of the song relies upon.

Lately we’ve been having a lot of challenging conversations about consent, which have explored relational dynamics the ‘yes means yes, no means no’ binary does not quite cover. The recent Tortoise podcast about allegations against Neil Gaiman (too hard a listen to unpack in this generally fun Xmas piece) explores a constellation of reasons a woman (or man) might say yes, and still feel exploited in the long term: age difference, power imbalance, vulnerability, social disorientation. On the other hand, the release of Gillian Anderson’s book Want - a compendium of women’s private sexual fantasies - has prompted fresh discussion about why women still find it so hard to voice their desires in the first place: namely, the centuries-high mountain of societal shame placed upon them for existing in a body and doing almost anything with it (sweating, exercising, aging, having sex, having periods).

I had always interpreted ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ as a song that spoke to the latter issue: I read it as the drama of a woman struggling with society’s expectations, rather than with a man’s. The female protagonist seems largely concerned with the network of individuals who’ll judge her for staying over - the ‘vicious’ maiden aunt, the ‘neighbours’, the fact that there’s ‘bound to be talk tomorrow’. And quite a lot of the impetus to stay comes from her: ‘maybe just a half a drink more’; ‘maybe just a cigarette more’. Particularly given the song’s 1940s context, with its severe consequences for women caught having sex out of wedlock, and no such parallel consequences for men, there’s a way to read ‘I ought to say no, no, no’ as an ahead-of-its-time commentary on sexual double standards, and our female lead’s decision to stay as the triumph of ‘want’ over ‘ought’.

Of course there’s a much darker way to interpret the song, too, and I get why in 2018 at the height of the #MeToo movement it was banned by several radio stations (the Kelly Clarkson rewrite is also from 2018). The female singer’s ‘no’ is not respected - then there’s that infamous line ‘say, what’s in this drink’ (though again, the 1940s context is important: apparently, this was an idiom women used to sidestep social expectations by blaming one's actions on the influence of alcohol, and would have been recognised as such by the listener). But still: is this woman being coerced into staying against her will? Or is the coercive pressure actually coming from the censorious community who want her back in bed?

Needless to say, the jury’s still out, and probably will be forever, due to an obvious but oft-forgotten point: the way we feel about a song (or book, or play) depends heavily on when it’s sung, how it’s sung, who sings it, and who’s listening (because the meaning of art is at least partly created in the mind of whoever experiences it). Listening to half a dozen versions of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ is a great way to illustrate this point. Paying attention to why some versions feel so ick, and why some feel so rousing, is a way in to thinking about the nuances of power, relationships, and storytelling, so below I am going to list six versions from worst to best and tell you why I ranked them that way. Mainly it’s given me an excuse to listen to the song on repeat the last two days, which has been great, because let’s face it, it is an absolute banger.

Five - Dean Martin & The Andrews Sisters

I’m going to insist on giving you a link here, rather than a YouTube clip, so that you can listen to the original 1959 recording - everything else is remastered: https://heavens-gates.com/50schristmas/coldoutside/

This version was doomed from the start. The fact that Dean is conversing with a chorus of female voices rather than with an individual kills any hope of intimacy. The power dynamic is strange - the set-up seems to present Dean as a notorious womaniser, simultaneously encouraging three women to stay the night - and it doesn’t help that the sisters’ voices are oddly anonymised and ethereal, almost as if Dean is trying to seduce a chorus of ghost ladies, who may vanish into the ether if they are touched by cold weather (actually, I would watch that movie). Artistically, who conceived of this mad pairing? In what world would Dean be having this conversation with three women at exactly the same time? The narrative makes no sense and so the relationship (inso far as there is one) feels exploitative, patriarchal and unconvincing. The women are replaceable and forgotten - Dean Martin is the star.

Four - Leon Redbone & Zooey Deschanel

I have a strong aversion to this. It was ok in Elf because it’s impossible to feel threatened by Will Ferrell in an elf costume, but Zooey Deschanel’s re-recording with Leon Redbone for the movie soundtrack is all wrong. Zooey is at peak manic-pixie-dream girl, and her space cadet, boopedy-boop-boop little girl voice feels so mismatched with the rumbling aged tone of Leon Redbone. It’s also so slow and ponderous that there’s no sense of rapport between the two singers. Instead of a back and forth, it just sounds like Leon is repeatedly interrupting her, bored by how long she’s taking to get through each line. They’re both brilliant vocalists, but whoever chose this doe-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights picture of Zooey to accompany the recording perfectly summed up the vibe IMO.

Three - Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer

I would say this is a classic of the ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ genre. It passes the first test of my newly created ranking system: the two singers actually feel as if they are in the same room, having a conversation. The emotional tone of both singers’ lines (especially toward the end) feels informed by the tone of their partner’s previous line: in other words, two humans listening and responding. Vocally, they are evenly matched too: neither singer is given more space, volume or air time. They harmonise beautifully, and to me this gives the song the complicity of young lovers who both ultimately want the same thing. But the interpretation doesn’t blow my mind, so it’s right in the middle.

Two - Olivia Newton John and John Travolta (try to ignore their dorky picture)

So this version is gender-switched - as in, Olivia takes the male part and John the female - but that’s not why I think it’s so good. It’s good because intimacy oozes out of it, so much so that the narrative becomes less first-date and more old-married-couple. There’s such tenderness in every syllable, particularly in John’s voice: it’s the little chuckles; the first names thrown in; the occasional line that is almost spoken, rather than sung (because they don’t need to perform for each other any more, see?). No-one has ever wanted to stay anywhere more than John Travolta wants to stay with Olivia. He just can’t because he has work early tomorrow; or that’s what it feels like. There’s a textual detail I love, too: most post-1950s recordings substitute the line ‘Say, lend me your comb’ to ‘Say, lend me your coat’, because no-one insists on using a comb before leaving the house anymore. But John reinstates the original ‘comb’ version: it feels like a tiny, knowing nod to Grease, and therefore a reminder to us all of this couple’s long history; the decades of simpatico and admiration that exist between the pair.

One - Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews

It’s hard to put any version at number one, but I love this, and I’m going to make a strong bid for it. The big band accompaniment that kicks off the song lets us know exactly what we’re in for: a heightened theatricality; a real show; a damn good time. And then the performances. Cerys Matthews has such a deep, powerful voice, and she’s clearly decided to use it in the sultriest way possible: there’s no shy, retiring young maiden here. Her performance feels so knowing, and yet so felt, that it’s like she’s embodying the role of seductress while poking fun at it, too; giving us the song we want while teasing us for wanting it. Tom Jones is in heightened mode, too, basically being maximum Tom Jones - and while I’m not sure I believe in the pair as lovers, I believe totally in their complicity as performers, which is just as good. They are here to entertain us, and they’re doing it together. This gives the whole song its sense of playfulness; the sense of letting us, the audience, in on the joke.

I’d initially listened to this version on Spotify, so it was only when I went to Youtube to find a link to embed that I encountered the music video. Which is… absolutely mad, and which I watched with my mouth wide open like a cartoon shocked person, in various states of horror and amazement. Because it’s either the most full-throated endorsement of the reading I’ve just suggested, or a brutal undermining of my claim that this is a feminist anthem. The whole thing takes place on a giant chess board surrounded by fire: so far, so crazy, but also so good - the chess board symbolism reinforcing the idea that this flirtation is all just a game played by professionals. But then, oh no - CERYS IS IN A CAGE! Tom Jones has literally imprisoned her! What’s more, she’s wearing the kind of white peasant dress that seems to be constantly in danger of falling down; the kind of dress a woman wears when she is locked in a tower waiting for a knight to rescue her. But… is it so cliched, so pantomime damsel-in-distress, that we’re back to my theory of knowing satire? Tom lets her out, and they run around for a bit, and then OH GOD, he actually gives her a POTION TO DRINK. He is drugging her. I’d almost admitted defeat when suddenly, Cerys transforms from flowing-dress-maiden to black-bodysuit-clad-seductress. Okay… but is it the potion that’s changed her? That still feels not great… And yet, from herein, Cerys is placed above Tom; on tables, or dancing on the chair that was formerly his throne; leading every step of their interaction. She’s so palpably dominant that honestly, Tom Jones look like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and vacillates between worshipping her like a great queen and just sort of letting her do her thing. And then, Cerys guides him backwards, gives him a little shove… and LOCKS HIM IN THE CAGE! SHE KNEW WHAT SHE WAS DOING ALL ALONG! The tables have literally turned; the game is won. Cerys was play-acting the Madonna-Whore complex and Tom fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Except that after the music stops both of them burst out laughing, as their real, out-of-character selves, letting us know that not only was the seduction just a game, the game was just a game. They are actually just friends who had a subversive/ridiculous idea for a music video. Watch it for yourself and see what you think; prepare to be gobsmacked:

Amazing, right? Terrifying. Mad. A genius send up of everything we hope and fear that this song may be about.

Having said that, the fact that Tom Jones has proudly claimed to have slept with two hundred groupies a year back in his touring days feels like it may destabilise my claims once more. Can you separate art from artist? That’s a question for another time. Merry Christmas, everyone.