Christmas music and Christmas presents have the unique ability to bring back emotional memories of the holidays that we have enjoyed in the past.
There are modern day hits, classics that have stood the test of time, and many, many covers of those classics.
Especially at Christmas, I like to put on some of Elvis’ music, sit back, and enjoy.
But whether you prefer “Frosty the Snowman” or “White Christmas,” many people have their own favorite carols.
This year though, if you’re tuning on the radio, you may notice one Christmas tune missing from many playlists.
The 1944 holiday hit, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” written by Frank Loesser, has been removed from many radio stations’ holiday lineup this year.
Why?
The song includes lines normally sung by a woman including “Say, what’s in this drink?” and “I simply must go,” followed by the woman singing “The answer is no.”
The Cleveland, Ohio station said that the song clashed with the #MeToo movement and they felt that it was inappropriate.
One of the station’s hosts, Glenn Anderson, said that the song was written in a different era and that they lyrics felt “manipulative and wrong”.
”The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, the song has no place”, Glenn Anderson wrote in a post on the WDOK website, according to USA Today.
The potentially problematic lyrics of the 1944 song have been discussed for year but the move of taken it away from the lineup reignited an old debate across the country.
Amy Turner, the director of sexual assault services at The Center for Women and Families, says, “We really need to think about the impact that songs have, not just ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside,’ but numerous songs that we decide to play on the radio.”
But in response to all this controversy, one radio station in Kentucky fought back and showed its support of the song in the only way it knew how – by playing it on a loop, for two hours straight.
Radio station WAKY played 5 different versions of the song in a 2 hour window from 8am to 10am on Sunday morning.
‘It’s just a fun way of saying, ‘Hey this is our vote for that song. It’s a fun song. It’s a romantic song, don’t pick on it”, says Joe Fredele, director of programming for WAKY.
Joe Fredele, director of programming for WAKY says he supports the #MeToo movement but that “this song is not about that”.
”All it is, is a dialogue between a man and a woman, and at the end of the song, you hear them harmonize together, so they’re agreeing basically.”
What’s your opinion? Do you think “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” should be banned from radio stations?¨
