Voters Are Hot and Cold on ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside

In 2020, voters are once again saying “no” to this controversial Christmas tune.

Still from Neptune’s Daughter, where “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” first debuted. Photo: MGM

“Baby It’s Cold Outside” has fallen 15 spots from its position on our list of The Best Christmas Songs of All Time since Christmas last year.

Ten years ago, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was just another Christmas song. But at some point in the early 2010s, the song experienced a backlash of sorts from pop culture critics, who questioned why a song with arguably creepy lyrics was still considered acceptable holiday fare. Last year, we reported that there had apparently been a backlash to that backlash around 2014 — the song experienced a surge in popularity on our list of The Best Christmas Songs of All Time, which has nearly 100K votes.

Now, in 2020, it seems the pendulum has swung once more in the opposite direction. Starting around June of this year, the song began to tumble back down the list. As of December 21st, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is at #31, close to where it sat on the list back when people first began criticizing the holiday duet earlier in the decade. In other words, we are now in the middle of the backlash to the backlash to the backlash against “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

NOTE: This graph maps the position of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ on our Best Christmas Songs of All Time list. Keep in mind that the graph is a little counterintuitive, as a trend upward in this line actually indicates that the song has gone down on the list (because the most popular song is at #1). For example, though the line graph goes down from late 2014 until 2019, it means that ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside actually went up on our list during that period. A line trending upward means the song is becoming less popular, while a line trending downward means it’s becoming more popular. Get it? Got it? Good.

Critics of the lyrics argue that the song’s male speaker is using a snowstorm outside to pressure the female speaker into spending the night with him, despite her repeated insistence that she needs to go home. Some argue that the line “say, what’s in this drink?” implies that the male speaker might have actually drugged his duet partner. Defenders argue that the song was written during a time when it was considered scandalous for an unmarried woman to spend the night at a man’s home, and that the female speaker isn’t rejecting the male speaker so much as hoping to avoid the wrath of her sister, aunt, and father.

It’s possible that the song’s drop down the holiday charts doesn’t definitively mean that people feel one way or the other about the song’s lyrics — it could mean that they’re just tired of talking about them every year. It could even have something to do with the revised version released by John Legend this year, which features altered lyrics meant to reflect our contemporary ideas about sex and consent. Though Legend clearly had good intentions, Americans are often wary of even the smallest changes their holiday traditions.

Where do you stand on the “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” controversy? You can make your voice heard by voting for or against this song on our list — along with tons of other lists featuring the best and worst things about the holiday season.

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These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

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