Baby It’s Cold Outside #babyitscoldoutside #christmassongs

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a popular song written by Frank Loesser in 1944 and popularized in the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter. While the lyrics make no mention of a holiday, it is commonly regarded as a Christmas song owing to its winter theme. The song was released in eight recordings in 1949 and has been covered numerous times since. During the 1940s, whenever Hollywood celebrities with vocal talents attended parties, they were expected to perform songs. In 1944, Loesser wrote "Baby, It's Cold Outside" to sing with his wife, Lynn Garland, at their housewarming party in New York City at the Navarro Hotel. They sang the song to indicate to guests that it was time to leave.[1] Garland has written that after the first performance, "We became instant parlor room stars. We got invited to all the best parties for years on the basis of 'Baby.' It was our ticket to caviar and truffles. Parties were built around our being the closing act." In 1948, after years of performing the song, Loesser sold it to MGM for the 1949 romantic comedy Neptune's Daughter. Garland was furious: "I felt as betrayed as if I'd caught him in bed with another woman" According to Esther Williams, the producers of Neptune's Daughter had planned to use a different Loesser song, "(I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China", but studio censors thought it was too suggestive and replaced it with "Baby." The song won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song is a call and response duet between two people, a host (called "Wolf" in the score, usually performed by a male singer) and a guest (called "Mouse", usually performed by a female). Every line in the song features a statement from the guest followed by a response from the host. The lyrics consist of the host trying to convince the guest that she should stay for a romantic evening because he fears her getting too cold outside, despite the fact that she feels she should return home to her concerned family and neighbors. In the film Neptune's Daughter, the song is first performed by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams, then with a comic parody twist by Betty Garrett and Red Skelton: this time the man wants to leave and the woman wants him to stay. In at least one published version the tempo of the song is given as "Loesserando", a humorous reference to the composer's name. 1949 recordings Don Cornell and Laura Leslie with Sammy Kaye and his orchestra; recorded on April 12 and released by RCA Victor (peaked at No. 12 on Billboard's Records Most Played By Disk Jockeys chart, at No. 13 on Billboard's Best-Selling Popular Retail Records chart [lasting ten weeks on the chart], and at No. 17 on Billboard's Most-Played Juke Box Records chart in mid-1949) Bing Crosby and James Stewart, abbreviated radio performance with Stewart taking the "mouse" part, from The Bing Crosby – Chesterfield Show; released on The Bing Crosby Christmas Gift Collection Doris Day and Bob Hope; radio performance from The Bob Hope Show Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan with the Tympany Five; recorded on April 28 and released by Decca Records (peaked at No. 9 on Billboard's Most-Played Juke Box Records chart and No. 17 on Billboard's Best-Selling Popular Retail Records chart [lasting seven weeks on the latter chart] in mid-1949) Lynn Garland and Frank Loesser (credited as Lynn & Frank Loesser); released by Mercury Records Homer and Jethro and June Carter; released by RCA Victor (peaked at No. 22 on Billboard's Records Most Played By Disk Jockeys chart on the week ending August 20, 1949) Dean Martin and Marilyn Maxwell; radio performance from The Martin and Lewis Show; released on several compilations, including The Very Best of Dean Martin and Relax, It's Dean Martin, Vol 2 Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark with Ted Dale and his orchestra; recorded on March 17 and released by Columbia Records (peaked at No. 3 on Billboard's Records Most Played By Disk Jockeys chart, at No. 4 on Billboard's Best-Selling Popular Retail Records chart, and No. 6 on Billboard's Most-Played Juke Box Records chart in mid-1949) Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer with Paul Weston and his orchestra; recorded on March 18 and released by Capitol Records (peaked at No. 3 on Billboard's Records Most Played By Disk Jockeys chart, at No. 4 on Billboard's Best-Selling Popular Retail Records chart [lasting 19 weeks on the chart], and No. 8 on Billboard's Most-Played Juke Box Records chart in mid-1949)