War on Christmas | Day 8: Lascivious Crooners

Duets are typically not worth the time it takes to hit the skip button. Neither old standards suitable for AM radio, nor generally any music by Zooey Deschanel, much as I love looking at her when she doesn't have bangs.



However, I have a soft spot in my head heart for "Baby, It's Cold Outside." It's cute, it's boppy but not poppy, it's got snow and drinking and sexy music, disobeying parental and societal regulations … it's basically the Footloose of Christmas season songs.

However, if the woman singing the "Mouse" lines can't manage to be flirtatious enough to work with the "Wolf" singer, she just comes off kind of earnestly fearful of being trapped in a snowstorm and romantically assaulted. This is not something we should be okay with in an oft-covered easy listening hit.

I can't find any mention of it, so my ear is obviously off on this one, but I would swear at work I have been hearing a Frank Sinatra version of this song. It's definitely not, maybe another Rat Packer or emulator, but it doesn't particularly matter to this discussion because the important issue is that–best I can tell–this version was sung as a solo.

And not "guy sings the main part, chorus/random voice quietly peeps out the back line," no. This "Frank" sings the Wolf lines only, and unless the treble has been completely stripped from the track, there is no Mouse singer. Yes, it's just some guy monologuing to some woman who cannot voice her opinions, cajoling and berating her, rapaciously grasping at her presence.

Christmas should never be associated with an adjective like "date-rape-y."