Don’t Ban The Song

Dont+Ban+The+Song

During Christmas time, not many people associate holiday jingles with controversy. In lieu of the #MeToo movement, much trouble surrounding the 1944 song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” has risen. Many see the lyrics as “date rape-y” as the female singer asks, “Say, what’s in my drink?” Furthermore, the male singer repeatedly asks the woman in the song if she wants to stay inside at his house, even after each of her “no’s”.

However, the issue concerning the song was made much more prominent this year, which has prompted some radio stations across the country to ban it from seeing airtime. Canadian radio stations have also followed suit and have thus banned the song on some of their stations. In San Francisco, KOIT radio station banned the song, but after a week of it being off air, many listeners demanded the song get put back on. According to CBS News, the vote for putting the song back on the air at KOIT was roughly 77 percent.

While some view the song as promoting date rape and ignoring consent, many more feel the song is a tradition and argue that the time it was written in is different than the times we live in now.

Reinforcing this idea is the large influx of people streaming all versions of the famous song. Whether it is the Michael Bublé and Idina Menzel version or the Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart cover, these songs have seen millions of streams over the past few weeks. As for the radio, it has seen dips and peaks over the past couple of days.