Baby It's (Still) Cold Outside

Do you ever work on a blog post and then go off on a(nother) tangent to find more info?

It happens to me sometimes all the time. Like the other day when I was preparing the homemade soup and bread post and in the opening, borrowed the first line of a well-known song. After, I started humming the tune title in that line in my head all day, I did some online sleuthing and found out that . . .

Baby, It's Cold Outside is the title of the Academy award- winning song written by Frank Loesser in 1944. The tune is usually performed as a male-female duet and was originally performed in Neptune's Daughter, a 1949 musical romantic-comedy film. In the film, a woman mistakes a masseur for a South American polo team captain and falls in love with him, meanwhile her older sister meets with the actual captain and falls in love with him as well.

In the movie, the song was performed by  Esther Williams cast as a swimsuit designer and Ricardo Montalban as the Latin polo captain and lover who tries to seduce her for an evening of love. (No type casting here, right folks.) 

Loesser wrote Baby, It's Cold Outside five years before it was used in the film and its Best Song award was presented by Cole Porter. After the tune's win, some songwriters complained (sore losers?) that it should've been disqualified as it wasn't written for the musical. (It was widely known that Loesser and his wife enjoyed performing it at parties to suggest it was time for guests to leave.) The naysayers lost as the song's award was deemed valid because its professional debut was in the film.

Not only wasn't the tune featured in a holiday-themed film (think White Christmas or Holiday Inn) but it typically receives big airway play during the holidays. Last December, singers Idina Menzel (think Let It Go from Frozen and then try to forget that tune) and Michael Bublé teamed for a duet on Holiday Wishes, Menzel's 1st seasonal album. 

Here's the YouTube music video; while the vocals are terrific, it's the very impressive skills of these talented British youngsters that's a must-see. Just be patient through the opening ad cause it's worth the wait. Seriously, I'm not sure HOW I missed seeing this before — Enjoy.



The duet is available on YouTube and while the vocals are terrific, it's the music video that's  steals the show as it stars some British youngsters with very impressive skills.
FYI: There's a YouTube "Behind the Scenes" video about the production. It's fun too!

IF you're familiar with the  lyrics, you'll notice that some have been changed to be less explicit and kid-friendly." For example, instead of "Well maybe just half a drink more" you'll hear "Well maybe just a soda pop more" and "Say what's in this drink?" replaced with "Say was that a wink?"

My favorite "adult" version is performed by Sammy Davis, Jr and Carmen McRae (Boy Meets Girl, studio Decca album) which was recorded Feb 18-19, 1957 — perfect timing for wintry weather.