[Dixielandjazz] "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

[Robert Ringwald]

Remember Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton doing this song?  


'Baby, It's Cold Outside': The Real Story of the Song
by Scott Eyman
Palm Beach Post, December 7, 2010

I really can't stay
(But baby it's cold outside)
I've got to go away
(But baby it's cold outside)
This evening has been...
(Been hoping that you'd drop in)
...so very nice
(I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice)
As headline writers around the country compete to come up with variations on "Baby,
It's Cold Outside," the crusading journalists at the Palm Beach Post want you to
know the truth about the song, not to mention the phrase.
Like everything else in the world, it's got a tangential South Florida connection.
But it has little to do with this week's blast of arctic air, or even the holiday
season.
"My father wrote that song as a piece of special material for he and my mother to
do at parties," says John Loesser, who runs the Lyric Theatre in Stuart, and is the
son of legendary composer Frank Loesser ("Guys and Dolls," "How to Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying").
Frank Loesser's wife, Lynn, was a nightclub singer who had moved from Terre Haute,
Ind. to New York in search of a career. She was singing in a nightclub when she met
Frank Loesser around 1930.
The song itself was written in 1944, when Loesser and his wife had just moved into
the Hotel Navarro in New York. They gave a housewarming party for themselves and
when they did the number, everybody went crazy.
"We had to do it over and over again," Lynn Loesser told her kids, "and we became
instant parlor room stars."
Unusually for a duet, the song has to be sung with the last word of each line overlapping
the first word of the next:
My mother will start to worry
(Beautiful what's your hurry)
My father will be pacing the floor
(Listen to the fireplace roar)
So really I'd better scurry
(Beautiful please don't hurry)
But maybe just a half a drink more
(Put some records on while I pour)
In other words, it's tricky, and has to be carefully rehearsed.
The song became something of a legend, and as the Loessers bounced back and forth
between New York and Hollywood, they did the song at parties all over both towns.
"It was something that songwriters did in those days," says John Loesser. "If you
were invited to a party, you were expected to sing for your supper. Oscar Levant,
Roger Edens, Harry Warren -- they all did it. But the song was a private social piece
for parties. My mother just loved both the song and the fact that it was hers. And
it kept them in champagne and caviar."
Eventually, MGM offered Frank Loesser good money for the song, and he took it. "He
went home and told my mother and she was furious," John recalls.
The song was used in the 1949 musical "Neptune's Daughter," where it was sung by
those legendary Golden Throats, Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban.
"You sold our song for Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban!" Lynn Loesser complained
to her husband.
"I felt as betrayed as if I'd caught him in bed with another woman," she complained
to her kids.
For a long time, Lynn Loesser would simply sigh, "Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban."
The marriage eventually broke up, but not over Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban.
Their original version has been forgotten, but the song has been covered by nearly
every singer of the American songbook, and the title itself has entered the popular
lexicon. And even though it's popular at this time of year, it's not really a holiday
song.
"My father wrote a lot of duets," says John Loesser. "'Two Sleepy People,' others.
And the interesting thing is that songs take on a life of their own. Like his song
'What Are You Doing New Year's Eve,' which has been mistaken for a holiday song all
these years. But it wasn't written for the holidays at all. It's supposed to be sung
right after New Year's, or even in the middle of the year.
"And 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' wasn't written in a blizzard, but as a seduction song
to liven up parties."
Baby, It's an Old Cliche
But journalists can't help themselves. A Google search this week found dozens of
headlines or online stories with the phrase, "Baby It's Cold Outside." Including:
* A story about a British soccer team.
* A roundup of holiday cookbooks.
* A story about the song's use on "Glee."
* Weather stories in Seattle, New Jersey and South Carolina.
* And our favorite, from spacedaily.com: "Baby, it's cold outside but you can still
enjoy the best meteor shower of the year."
It Still Warms Us Up
The song's enduring popularity:
* Over the years, it has made the singles chart in four different versions, recorded
by pop, jazz, soul and country stars.
* The most popular versions? It depends, but we like the ones by Bing Crosby, Dean
Martin, Ray Charles and Betty Carter and, in recent years, Willie Nelson and Norah
Jones, and Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone on the soundtrack from "Elf."
* The most unlikely versions? A duet at the 1958 Academy Awards by Rock Hudson and
Mae West.
* The most recent version: Chris Colfer and Darren Criss from "Glee" sing it on the
show's new holiday album.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
530/ 642-9551 Office
916/ 806-9551 Cell
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

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