S.F. station brings back controversial soni
By Jim Harrington
jharrington@bayareanewsgroup.com
After nixing the nowcontroversial classic holiday tune “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” San Francisco radio station KOIT-FM 96.5 is now playing it again, reports say. And it’s all because of the will of listeners.
KGO-AM 810 reported that KOIT changed its mind after “thousands” of listeners told the station they wanted to hear the song, despite concerns that the lyrics seem to describe a date rape.
“KOIT’s listeners have spoken, and the overwhelming message is they do want to hear ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ on our station,” KOIT program director Brian Figula told KGO.
A recent Bay Area News Group poll showed similar results, with nearly 90 percent of the roughly 1,400 readers responding agreeing the song is a classic and should be played.
Yet the 1940s song that appeared in the film “Neptune’s Daughter” has sparked an annual debate as to whether its lyrics are unsuitable in the #MeToo era. The song, written by Frank Loesser, describes “a night of booze and questionable consent,” as The Washington Post’s Rachel Raczka describes it. “She wants to go home, he wants her to stay; she says ‘no,’ he says, ‘What’s the sense of hurting my pride?’ It’s behavior that some have referred to as ‘a little rape.’ ” And one line in particular — “Say what’s in this drink” — has prompted the most emphatic calls for the song’s banishment.
Last week, KOIT, which broadcasts a heavy dose of holiday tunes each year, opted to stop playing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and Figula told ABC 7 news, “The #MeToo movement has really opened our eyes and really made us look at content and lyrics.”
Singers have long embraced the tune. Loesser recorded it with his wife.
Other artists who have performed it include Dean Martin, Ray Charles, Tom Jones, Dolly Parton, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, and Idina Menzel and Michael Buble.
