Minnesota-based couple Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski bonded over their mutual distaste for the lyrics of Frank Loesser’s classic Christmas tune, “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
The 1944 original version of the song alludes to non-consensual sex with lyrics including, “What’s in this drink?” and more, as a woman tries to leave an all-too-persistent man during a snowstorm. (Despite the controversy, the song is considered a Christmas classic and has been covered many times since its release.) So, Liza and Lemanski decided to give it an update.
“I ought to say no, no, no,” sings Liza.
“You reserve the right to say no,” Lemanski replies in their remake.
The couple talked to CNN about their now-viral modernized version of the holiday song.
“I’ve always had a big problem with the song,” 25-year-old Lemanski said. “It’s so aggressive and inappropriate.”
Liza, 22, agreed.
“We started thinking of the open-ended questions that the song has,” she said. “You never figure out if she gets to go home. You never figure out if there was something in her drink. It just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.”
The two soon got to work on answering these questions after 72 years.
In their version, the contents of the woman’s drink are perfectly innocent, with the male voice responding, “Pomegranate La Croix.” And when the woman says she “really can’t stay,” her male counterpart counters with “Baby I’m fine with that.” In the end, the two work together to get the woman home and they set a date for a dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.
“I thought we were just doing like a really good, cool, funny thing and it just felt right,” Liza said in the interview. “And emphasizing consent is one of the causes that I’ve always really been behind because I don’t think I can think of one friend of mine who’s a woman who hasn’t been in dangerous situations with men.”
In terms of their song’s wildly popular reactions, Liza was surprised to hear that many people acknowledged they never considered the meaning behind the lyrics.
“We heard a lot of people say, ‘Wow, we never actually paid attention to the lyrics before — this is awful!’ ” Liza said.
And the couple hope their message continues to resonate. In fact, they have already been pitched other songs with questionable lyrics.
“A lot of people have suggested a bunch of songs, like Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘She Didn’t Say Yes, She Didn’t Say No’ and Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines,’ ” she said. “We’ll just do a whole album.”
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