The song Baby It’s Cold Outside is a much beloved holiday classic in our culture. As such, it has been a topic of debate in the culture war. Some say the song makes light of date rape while others have a deeper understanding of the song. The full lyrics are included below.
Source: Washington Post, captioned: “Broadway composer Frank Loesser and his wife and musical partner Lynn are shown, April 26, 1956, in New York. Their song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was originally a song they performed for friends at their housewarming party. (AP Photo/Anthony Camerano)”
It was written in 1944 as duet by Broadway and Hollywood composer Frank Loesser to perform with his wife Lynn at the closing of parties they would host to signal to guests that it was getting late and that it was time to go.1 The song appeared in the 1949 film Neptune’s Daughter for which the song was given an Academy Award for Best Original Song.2 The song was performed twice in the film, first by the romantic interests Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban…
…and then by Red Skelton and Betty Garrat with Red singing the woman’s part and Betty singing the man’s part for much of the song.3 The Washington Post writes that the Skelton/Garrat duet,4
reflects a much more forceful struggle, even as it subverts traditional gender roles with his character dressing up in her clothes and picking up her purse in a hasty attempt to leave.
The song certainly endures today as a popular holiday duet, with recent covers by James Taylor and Natalie Cole, Norah Jones and Willie Nelson, and this year entering the indie lexicon with Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward’s version for A Very She & Him Christmas, where they make it a sped-up, reverb-y ’50s hipster romp.
Newer versions of the song similarly manipulate gender roles in order to challenge its masculine message. There was the famous Muppet rendition that had Miss Piggy aggressively imploring ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev to stay with her in a steam room
As we saw, such gender-inversions of the song have existed for almost as long as the song itself. Furthermore,7
Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt flipped the gender roles in a performance for the pop singer's 2013 holiday special with the Muppets.
There are hundreds of published versions (and inversions) the song8 including those by Bing Crosby,9 Dean Martin,10 Dinah Shore,11Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong, Kenny Rogers, Sammy Davis Jr., June Carter, Betty Carter with Ray Charles,12 Doris Day with Bob Hope,13 the Brian Setzer Orchestra with Ann-Margret, Rod Stewart with Dolly Parton, Olivia Newton-John with John Travolta, John Legend with Kelly Clarkson and many more.14
CULTURAL DEBATE OVER THE SONG
Now that we have established that this is an iconic holiday song, let us look at the cultural debate over the song.
Especially for a tune so closely associated with the holidays, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is icky at best, at worst reprehensible: It describes what may be a date rape. Let’s examine the situation: A woman has stopped by to visit a man, and he connives to keep her from leaving. “My answer is no,” she states, but he pours on the charm: “It’s up to your knees out there.” His seductions become increasingly smarmy (“What’s the sense of hurting my pride?”) and eventually sinister. At one point she exclaims, “Say, what’s in this drink?” Is he being generous with the alcohol, or has he slipped her something stronger?
Here’s the lyrics in their entirety with their original gender roles…
Woman: I really can’t stay. Man: But baby, it’s cold outside! Woman: I’ve got to go ‘way– Man: But baby, it’s cold outside! Woman: This evening has been– Man: Been hoping that you’d drop in. Woman: So very nice. Man: I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice. Woman: My mother will start to worry– Man: Beautiful, what’s your hurry? Woman: And father will be pacing the floor. Man: Listen to the fireplace roar! Woman: So really I’d better scurry. Man: Beautiful, please don’t hurry. Woman: Well maybe just a half a drink more. Man: Put some records on while I pour. Woman: The neighbors might think– Man: But baby, it’s bad out there. Woman: Say, what’s in this drink? Man: No cabs to be had out there. Woman: I wish I knew how– Man: Your eyes are like starlight now. Woman: To break the spell. Man: I’ll take your hat. Your hair looks swell. Woman: I ought to say, “No, no, no, sir!” Man: Mind if I move in closer? Woman: At least I’m gonna say that I tried. Man: What’s the sense in hurting my pride? Woman: I really can’t stay. Man: Oh, baby, don’t hold out. Woman: Ah, but it’s– Man: Cold outside…
Woman: I simply must go! Man: But baby, it’s cold outside! Woman: The answer is no! Man: But baby, it’s cold outside. Woman: The welcome has been– Man: How lucky that you dropped in! Woman: So very nice and warm. Man: Look out the window at that storm. Woman: My sister will be suspicious. Man: Gosh, your lips look delicious. Woman: My brother will be there at the door. Man: Waves upon a tropical shore! Woman: My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious. Man: Gosh, your lips are delicious. Woman: Well, maybe just a cigarette more. Man: Never such a blizzard before…
Woman: I’ve got to get home. Man: But baby, you’d freeze out there. Woman: Say, lend me your comb. Man: It’s up to your knees out there. Woman: You’ve really been grand– Man: Your eyes are like starlight now. Woman: But don’t you see– Man: How can you do this thing to me? Woman: There’s bound to be talk tomorrow. Man: Think of my lifelong sorrow– Woman: At least there will be plenty implied. Man: If you caught pneumonia and died. Woman: I really can’t stay. Man: Get over that old doubt. Woman: Ah, but– Man: Baby, it’s Both: Cold outside…
At no point in the song does the woman decide to leave and therefore at no point in the song does the man force her to stay. Of course, one can not give informed consent if one is drugged against one’s will. As we’ll see below, that is not a factor here, despite what some have claimed.
She clearly expresses her desire to stay with him and worries only about how to deal with how those close to her will react if she doesn’t go home in a timely manner. In other words, she wants to be a liberated woman and he offers her reasons to be a liberated woman, to do what she wants to do despite the expectations of the heavy traditional female social norms she feels the weight of.
It’s all too clear that he’s a predator and she’s prey
…and then asks,
Think I’m overstating it?
The answer is yes. You are overstating it because you are underthinking it. Nor are they alone in doing so. In time for the holidays in 2014, the Washington Post stated17
even though it’s catchy and, when preformed well, can be down right adorable, maybe it’s time for us to take “Baby It’s Cold Outside” off the Christmas playlist.
Their argument for this was,
in a year of renewed outrage over sexual violence, a song where a man sings, “Baby it’s cold outside,” and a woman responds, “the answer is no” deserves increased scrutiny and criticism.
It’s a haunting echo of what we teach young people about the meaning behind the word “no.” And just as the song may have been a progressive and even subversive message about woman’s sexuality in its own time, in our time, when we hear that “the answer is no,” it means no. Granted, when we look at its now 70-year-old origins, its title as the “date-rape” holiday classic seems both unwarranted and misleading, but as languages evolve, so too do words take on new meanings. Today, the song’s subtext finds itself at odds with basic notions of consent. So, even though it’s catchy and, when preformed well, can be down right adorable, maybe it’s time for us to take “Baby It’s Cold Outside” off the Christmas playlist.
In 2018’s holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reported,18
“When you take a 2018 lens to a song written many years ago, these lyrics suggest consent for sexual activity is negotiable when in fact it is not,” said Sondra Miller, chief executive officer of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. “We have to stop promoting media that normalizes rape.”
In their piece from 2019’s holiday season, updated in the holiday season of 2020, Time Magazine wrote,19
In the #MeToo era, a song about a man pressuring a woman to stay with him isn’t seen as so cheery by some.
To be fair, the woman sings,
“SAY WHAT’S IN THIS DRINK?”
Let’s face it, this line implies the act of being roofied in the cultural context we live in today. Let’s explore this argument further as it seems to be the crux of the matter.
Ultimately there’s something sinister about the song’s playful ambiguity, as we’ll never truly know if she wants to stay or if it’s just the roofie talking.
In November of 2014, the Daily Beast called the song “everyone’s favorite date-rape holiday classic” and asked “is ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ actually about a predatory forced sexual experience?” They answer, “Maybe!”21 They also write,
As has been well-trodden at this point, the lyrics to this classic duet are quite concerning. A woman wants to leave. A man refuses to let her.
We should pause here to note that this is false, having read the lyrics for ourselves. They continue,
“The answer is no,” she sings at one point. After he continues to badger her into staying, plying her with more drinks and ignoring her insistence that she really wants to go, comes the sinker: “Say, what’s in this drink?”
This is easily the most uncomfortable line for anybody currently of dating age who happens to overhear the song on a mall loudspeaker. Comedian Bill Cosby is currently in jail for raping women he drugged with spiked alcoholic drinks. A 2016 study of U.S. university students found that as many as one in 13 reported having been drugged. Sung references to drink control just don’t have the same whimsy that they once did.
However, as they write,
It’s probably safe to assume that Loesser didn’t write a song in which he uses alcohol or illicit pharmaceuticals to drug his wife into unconsciousness in order to rape her. The counter theory is that the line is actually the woman attempting to excuse her own desire to spend the night in defiance of social conventions. Slay Belle wrote that some variant of the line “What’s in this drink?” was pretty common to movies of the era, and was primarily used by characters looking to excuse their own behaviour. “The drink is the shield someone gets to hold up in front of them to protect from criticism,” she wrote.
On December 16, 2018, the Wall Street Journal wrote that some radio stations cancelled the song that year.23 They elaborated,
The reason: lyrics such as the woman asking “Say, what’s in this drink?” and the man pleading “But baby, it’s cold outside” when she says she has to go evoke date rape and coercion for some in an age of #MeToo sensitivity.
I’ve heard the take on “Baby” as “rapey” a couple of times over the years and the concern about the song usually centers in on one line: “Say, what’s in this drink,” which many contemporary listeners assume is a reference to a date rape drug. But narrowing in on this particular line divorces it from its own internal context, and having only passing familiarity with the song divorces it from its cultural context.
Belle’s entire argument deserves full attention but here we must focus in on the following,
So let’s talk about that drink. I’ve discussed solely looking at the lyrics of the song and its internal universe so far, but I think that the line “Say, what’s in this drink” needs to be explained in a broader context to refute the idea that he spiked her drink. “Say, what’s in this drink” is a well-used phrase that was common in movies of the time period and isn’t really used in the same manner any longer. The phrase generally referred to someone saying or doing something they thought they wouldn’t in normal circumstances; it’s a nod to the idea that alcohol is “making” them do something unusual. But the joke is almost always that there is nothing in the drink. The drink is the excuse. The drink is the shield someone gets to hold up in front of them to protect from criticism. And it’s not just used in these sort of romantic situations. I’ve heard it in many investigation type scenes where the stoolpigeon character is giving up bits of information they’re supposed to be protecting, in screwball comedies where someone is making a fool of themselves, and, yes, in romantic movies where someone is experiencing feelings they are not supposed to have.
Now consider what the Wall Street Journal published in 2018;24
Mr. Loesser wrote “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in 1944 as a song for him and his wife, Lynn Garland, to perform at parties, according to their daughter, Susan Loesser. She said the reference to what is in the woman’s drink was common at the time, signifying only that having an alcoholic beverage was cool. And the female singer’s repeated insistence that she needed to go was halfhearted, as she too wanted to stay, Ms. Loesser said.
“She’s flirting like crazy,” said the composer’s daughter, who was born the same year “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was written. “She’s wanting to stay, but she’s worried about what people will think.”
10 days earlier, on December 6, 2018, NBC News reported25 that Susan Loesser
said she understands why women nowadays might bristle at the song, which features a man trying to convince a woman to spend the night because the weather outside is frightful — and includes the line, “Say what’s in this drink?”
"Absolutely I get it," she said. “But I think it would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time. It was written in 1944.”
. . .
"I think my father would be furious at that," she said. "People used to say 'what’s in this drink' as a joke. You know, this drink is going straight to my head so what’s in this drink? Back then it didn’t mean you drugged me."
They also reported,
Karen North, a USC communications professor whose great uncle was a producer of “Guys and Dolls” and several other Loesser shows, said the song has been misinterpreted.
. . .
As for the “what’s in this drink” line, North said “it’s not about a date rape drug being put in a drink.”
"It's about a woman coming up with an excuse to stay because she’s had too much to drink and is referring to alcohol," she said.
A radio station in Cleveland says it has stopped playing the holiday song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” amid the #MeToo movement.
According to Star 102.1’s website, listeners of the radio station say the song’s lyrics are inappropriate, so they decided to pull it from their airwaves.
Star 102’s midday host Desiray told Fox 8 that it wasn’t the radio station’s decision, and they left it up to their listeners.
“People might say, ‘oh, enough with that #MeToo,’ but if you really put that aside and listen to the lyrics, it’s not something I would want my daughter to be in that kind of a situation,” Desiray told Fox 8.
In a different report on the same day, CBC Radio reported29 that Bell Media
runs two 24-hour Christmas stations in Vancouver and Ottawa
and that
Rogers runs a number of all-Christmas music stations, including 98.1 CHFI-FM in Toronto and 98.5 CIOC-FM in Victoria.
On December 5, 2018, USA Today reported30 that after
Cleveland radio station WDOK announced it would cease playing the song . . . radio stations all around the United States are beginning to follow suit, with mixed reactions from listeners.
CBC News also reported31 that the first Cleveland station to pull the song, Star 102.1, ran a poll on their Facebook page and
found that only six per cent of respondents thought the song was inappropriate, while 94 per cent wanted it played.
However, they explained,
No matter. The potential alone that the track may attract controversy was enough, apparently. So the track is being pulled, sending the message that the intention of the song doesn't matter, nor does the context in which it was written. After all, nothing says "happy holidays" like the death of nuance and frantic institutional overreaction.
On December 12, 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that a station host of Star 102 FM in Cleveland stated,32
“I do realize that when the song was written in 1944, it was a different time, but now while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong,”
They report, furthermore,
“When you take a 2018 lens to a song written many years ago, these lyrics suggest consent for sexual activity is negotiable when in fact it is not,” said Sondra Miller, chief executive officer of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. “We have to stop promoting media that normalizes rape.”
Also,
As more radio stations moved to ban “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in cities including Madison, Denver and San Francisco, the backlash hit.
…
San Francisco’s 96.5 KOIT pulled “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” on Dec. 3 after receiving more than 100 complaints, the most program director Brian Figula said he can remember for one song in his 25-year radio career. “Complaints ranged from ‘He’s pressuring the woman to do something she didn’t want to do’ and ‘I have a 10-year-old in the car and Mom’s having to explain that this content this guy is saying could be offensive to others’,” Mr. Figula said.
"Respondents voted 95 percent in favor of us keeping the song as part of KOSI 101.1's tradition of playing all of your holiday favorites," Program Director Jim Lawson said in the release. "While we are sensitive to those who may be upset by some of the lyrics, the majority of our listeners have expressed their interpretation of the song to be non-offensive.
But one thing hasn’t evolved: despite the confusion over its meaning, the song has remained popular. In fact, the renewed public attention didn’t hurt sales of the song when some radio stations banned “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in 2018, and the controversy may have helped it. That year, by mid-December, Dean Martin’s 1959 cover became the second best-selling holiday song in terms of digital sales.
BLAMING BILL COSBY FOR THE CANCELLATIONS
On December 10, 2014, South Park aired their episode “The Washington Redskins’ Go F*ck Yourself Holiday Special” in which some characters watch a holiday special on TV featuring a hologram of Bill Cosby doing a duet of the song with Taylor Swift. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote35
"Say, what's in this drink?" sings South Park's Swift after Cosby hand's her a glass of wine.
"That's just some J-E-L-L-O," Cosby croons back, intensifying his attempts to get Swift to stick around.
Later, in a scene dubbed over by a conversation between South Park's Eric Cartman and YouTube star PewDiePie, Cosby can be seen encouraging Swift to drink her wine and stay with him. As the scene begins to close, Swift closes her eyes, apparently passing out.
Meanwhile, in real life, Cosby is currently facing a defamation lawsuit via accuser Tamara Green, who claims that the comedian's repeated denials have branded her a liar in the public eye. More than 20 women have accused the comedian of sexual assault. He has never been charged in any of the allegations.
In this same piece, they refer to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as
notoriously one of the creepiest Christmas songs in history.
The following holiday season, Saturday Night Live took a poke at it.36
In the holiday season of 2018, NBC News reported,37
This is not sitting well with the daughter of Broadway legend Frank Loesser, who said she has heard complaints in the past about her dad’s ditty but blames Bill Cosby for turning it into something fiendish.
"Bill Cosby ruined it for everybody," Susan Loesser told NBC News on Thursday. “Way before #Me Too, I would hear from time to time people call it a date rape song. I would get annoyed because it’s a song my father wrote for him and my mother to sing at parties. But ever since Cosby was accused of drugging women, I hear the date rape thing all the time.”
Cosby was convicted earlier this year of drugging and sexually assaulting one woman and has been accused of doing the same to dozens more. And the link between the song and disgraced actor was even reinforced in a memorable SNL skit — from 2015.
Karen North, a USC communications professor whose great uncle was a producer of “Guys and Dolls” and several other Loesser shows, said the song has been misinterpreted.
“It’s about a man pursuing a woman and a woman pursuing a man and it’s sung in both directions,” she told NBC News. “It’s not about a male predator.”
If you look at the lyrics, North added, the lines sung by the woman are not "no, no, no."
"What she’s saying is 'I ought to say no, no, no,'" said North. "It’s all about how women in that era were not allowed to be unchaperoned with a man. The song is about two people who are mutually attracted and want to find an excuse to stay together."
As for the “what’s in this drink” line, North said “it’s not about a date rape drug being put in a drink.”
"It's about a woman coming up with an excuse to stay because she’s had too much to drink and is referring to alcohol," she said.
But some people who have looked closely at the lyrics say we're failing to consider the constraints women faced in 1944, when there was a great pressure to appear modest.
"She's afraid of being seen as slutty or naughty and is fighting her own desire," jazz singer Sophie Milman said of the song on CBC Radio's Metro Morning. Milman, who is well-versed in the lyrical traditions of the 1940s, hasn't recorded a version of the song that's now generating so much controversy.
"I see it as a playful repartee where the only thing holding her back from spending the night is the fact she's afraid of social judgment."
Sophie Milman, an award-winning jazz musician, says she thinks the song was meant to be a 'playful repartee' between the two singers. (Jonathan Hayward/CP)
Milman highlights the song's lyrics "I ought to say no, no, no, sir, at least then I can say that I tried."
"That doesn't sound like a woman who doesn't want to be there."
Milman's not the first to make that case: her idea echoes the ideas laid out by sociologist Elise Thorburn in a 2016 Globe and Mail piece, and feminist writer Cammila Collar in online magazine Medium, where she argued "the problem with Baby it's Cold Outside isn't consent, it's slut-shaming."
We saw Slay Belle’s argument regarding the drink and it’s contents. Belle had more to say,41 including,
The song sets up a story where the woman has dropped by her beau’s house on a cold winter night. They talk in the first verse about how long she’s going to stay. She has “another drink” and stays longer, and then later in the evening it’s implied that she’s going to sleep over.
If we look at the text of the song, the woman gives plenty of indication that she wants to stay the night. At the time period the song was written (1936), “good girls,” especially young, unmarried girls, did not spend the night at a man’s house unsupervised. The tension in the song comes from her own desire to stay and society’s expectations that she’ll go. We see this in the organization of the song — from stopping by for a visit, to deciding to push the line by staying longer, to wanting to spend the entire night, which is really pushing the bounds of acceptability. Her beau in his repeated refrain “Baby, it’s cold outside” is offering her the excuses she needs to stay without guilt.
Let’s look at the lines. As she’s talking about leaving, she never says she doesn’t want to stay. Her words are all based around other people’s expectations of her — her mother will worry, her father will be pacing the floor, the neighbors will talk, her sister will be suspicious of her excuses and her brother will be furious, and my favorite line that I think is incredibly revealing, — “My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious.” Vicious about what? Sex. Unmarried, non-good girl having, sex.
Later in the song, she asks him for a comb (to fix her hair) and mentions that there’s going to be talk tomorrow – this is a song about sex, wanting it, having it, maybe having a long night of it by the fire, but it’s not a song about rape. It’s a song about the desires even good girls have.
So what is he singing while she’s talking about what other people think of her? He’s providing her with a list of cover stories, essential, excuses she can use to explain why she hasn’t or won’t go home. It’s cold out, it’s snowing, the cabs aren’t running, the storm is becoming a blizzard, she might get hurt trying to get home. He’s complimenting her as well, something that many criticisms of the song hone on — she has beautiful eyes, her lips look delicious, her hair looks swell. But this is standard romantic language. They are having an intimate time together and he’s far less constrained by societal expectations, so he can ask her to stay. It’s always assumed that she’ll turn him down. Except that she doesn’t want to. It’s her mother, her father, her aunt, the neighbors that want her to go home in a storm; she’s having a lovely time. (“I ought to say no, no, no sir, well, at least I’m gonna say that I tried.”)
After directly addressing the “what’s in this drink?” line which we covered above, Belle goes on to state,
The song, which is a back and forth, closes with the two voices in harmony. This is important — they’ve come together. They’re happy. They’re in agreement. The music has a wonderfully dramatic upswell and ends on a high note both literally and figuratively. The song ends with the woman doing what she wants to do, not what she’s expected to do, and there’s something very encouraging about that message.
CBC News had some points to make in their 2018 holiday season piece,42
Including,
Odd that someone applying today's mores to the lyrics "Well maybe just a cigarette more" wouldn't also pause in horror at the mention of smoking in the house, but hey.
Also,
Going out of our way to find evil interpretations of classic art doesn't further a feminist agenda, but engaging with and analyzing older works such as Baby, It's Cold Outside just might. But that can only happen if people actually hear the song.
Additionally, they argue,
Critics cite the song as inappropriate in the "#MeToo era," where we have come to understand what it means to be a woman in a subordinate position, sexually harassed by a man in a position of power. Yet lyrics in the song such as "Been hoping that you'd drop in" and "How lucky that you dropped in" make it sound a lot like the female character in the song has come over unannounced, surprising the man in his home. She flirtatiously threatens to leave, while accepting excuses to stay. How this is an example of #MeToo, I can't quite connect.
The accusation that Baby, It's Cold Outside is about sexual assault is absurd unless you isolate the entire duet down to the lines "Say, what's in this drink?" and "The answer is no." That ignores the lyrics that suggest that same character internally wrestling with wanting to stay ("I wish I knew how / To break this spell," "I ought to say 'No, no, no sir' / At least I'm gonna say that I tried").
Also,
The problem is not that there's any consensus that Baby, It's Cold Outside is incompatible with our modern sensibilities. Rather, current-day interpretations of the song would open the door to all kinds of reasonable, interesting, likely messy conversations about how consent can sometimes be complicated, and not as black and white as many would have us believe.
When art challenges us — particularly art from a different time — it's easier to lock it away in the vault forever, instead of engaging with what it is that makes us uncomfortable. In this case, pulling a song from the airwaves is less hassle than confronting the reality that the push-and-pull dynamic of pursuing and being pursued can involve "no"s that don't necessarily mean no.
In the same way that a verbal yes combined with non-verbal signals of discomfort or reluctance mean no, a verbal no when behaviour indicates the opposite is sometimes a "convince me" — and learning to identify when that's the case is where the adventure of attraction lives. The truth is, blanketing the whole mysterious song and dance with labels of creepy and predatory doesn't benefit either men or women, regardless of who's pursuing who.
Women deserve better than lazy, intentionally uncharitable readings of half-a-century-old songs for their feminist causes. People, romance and sexuality are complex, so taking a catchy tune and highlighting the portions that sound most suspicious in 2018 is not just a stretch — it's dishonest.
Unilaterally moralizing that songs, movies, novels or any art from another time is no longer fit for public consumption sends us down a no-win path. It leaves so many valued cultural artifacts vulnerable to puritanical erasure — whether it happens overnight or over time — and robs us of opportunities to continue seeing ourselves in other humans, stories and cultures from our past.
In 2019, Time Magazine quoted43 the Director of the Center for Military, War, and Society Studies at the University of Kansas Beth Bailey as saying,
That song comes from an era when women were just expected to say no, no matter what they wanted
and
The culture refused to acknowledge women’s right to say yes or no. Not being able to say yes is as much as a problem as having to say no.
I’ll leave it up to the reader whether I’m kidding by doing so, but I’ll end with the best argument in favor of the song,44
Well, not quite everyone loved Baby, It’s Cold Outside. A young Egyptian, Sayyid Qutb, studying at what is now Northern Colorado University, heard a recording of the song at a church dance and wrote that was outraged: “The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . .” Qutb went back to Egypt to become a leader in the fanatically anti-secular Muslim Brotherhood. Later hanged for plotting to overthrow the Nasser government, he’s regarded as the godfather of modern jihad.
Feminists love to cultivate sympathetic “allies.” And they’ve got them aplenty in their grim and puritanical loathing of a cheery Christmas song: radical Islamic terrorists.
