Friday, November 29, 2019

Visiting Column #28 -- Baby, It's Woke Outside

Dean Martin and Marilyn Maxwell.  Bing Crosby and Doris Day.  Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton.  Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer.  Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan.

I hope you're getting the idea.  As this Christmas season arrives, and we are deluged with as many seasonal songs as we choose to hear, those of us of a more traditional bent will periodically hear more than a few renditions of the 1944 Frank Loesser classic, "Baby, It's Cold Outside."  Chances are, the performers will be one or more of the couples mentioned above, all of whom recorded the song before I was in kindergarten, and I'm pretty old.

As often as I've written about music performance, I've tried to stress the idea that the performer of a song is taking you, the listener, on some type of journey (especially lyrical-themed songs), to suspend your disbelief -- that is, to make you forget that the people singing are, well, singing, and that the performer wants to put you, yourself in their story.

When I hear -- well, any of the performances I noted above -- doing that duet, I am immediately back in the 1940s, a time of sophistication (faux or real), a life portrayed in the movies.  It is winter, and the most sophisticated version of seduction is going on.  It is a combination of come-on, tease, back-and-forth innuendo.  Never is anything actually said overtly that talks of anything more than a kiss, even though the topic is obviously more so than that.

They're already at the guy's apartment, and it's cold out.  We all know what he wants, and she is trying to act the demure lady.  Duh.

Nothing in the preceding paragraphs, though is more important than this line: "We all know what he wants."  We don't need to be told, and we especially need to not hear it explicitly, because that is the 1940s setting in which the song was done, with everything subtle, understated, polite.  Even if the 1940s weren't exactly like that, the movies were, and that's key.  It is an image, a fantasy world.

So that is what is so ridiculous about a new, "cleaned up" version of the song, done by John Legend and Kelly Clarkson.  The intent, of course, is to remove the story from the realm of '40s subtlety and plunk it down into 2019 political correctness, straight out of the #metoo world of LA and NYC.  We are treated to lyrics like "Your body, your choice" which, while a perfectly decent sentiment, rips us right back into disbelief.

Oh, yes, Mr. "Legend", you're a wonderful example of 2019 woke maleness, who wouldn't touch a woman without her consent.  Zzzzzzzzzz.

Now, John Legend is not a virgin in the performance world.  He's surely familiar with '40s music and doesn't need me to explain to him what the subtlety in "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is all about.  And that's what makes it so contemptible that he feels the need to virtue-signal by tweaking lyrics.  He knows darn well that the song's core is the unspoken message of seduction, not the current sign-a-paper-that-says-it's-OK-to-touch-you message.  He knows better.  I'd hope that Kelly Clarkson does, too, but for sure Legend does.

I guess now we're in for it.  I was listening to the same SiriusXM channel ("Traditional Christmas") yesterday and they were playing an old recording of "Let it Snow."  Oh, my God, I hope that John Legend doesn't know that one.

The fire is slowly dying, and my dear, we're still goodbye-ing
But as long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It's the same problem, folks!  Subtle seduction abetted by cold weather.  I can't wait for some other virtue-signaling #metoo type to rewicker that one into something that will, well, help make sure that Donald Trump gets reelected in a landslide.

Nothing subtle there.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

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