Advent of Holiday Horror: Song 25

Dec 01, 2011 17:41


Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. Please leave any comments there.

Have you ever noticed that Vodka is one of the most annoying drinks out there?  It is possible, with Vodka, to have consumed both too much Vodka and not nearly enough Vodka, at the same time.  Irritating.

But this isn’t about that.  This is an advent countdown of Christmas and other miscellaneous holiday songs that really make me throw up in my mouth a little, that nasty scratchy taste in your throat when you hear them - you know the kind I mean.  Those.  And I know there will be people commenting “BUMD, you know the Advent really starts on the 4th Sunday before Christmas, so you’re missing the first few days - don’t you remember your Cataclysm?”  These are the same killjoys who insisted that “you know the Millenium is really next year” on 31 December 1999, while the rest of us were partying like it was, well, you know.  So I’m missing a few days.  My kids’ advent calendars, the kind with the shitty chocolate?  They agree with me.  Take it up with Target, I’m blogging over here.

The first song, which I suppose is really the 25th song, I’ve mentioned during other holiday seasons - SOBUMD and I refer to it as The Holiday Date Rape Song, Frank Loesser’s 1936 classic “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”  Don’t get me wrong, sure, Loesser was a musical genius.  At the time, he was a lyrical genius as well.   Seventy five years later, a lot of Loesser’s lyrics not only don’t stand the test of time, but in fact would get him thrown out of the more PC houses.   He marked the duet parts as “mouse” and “wolf” on the printed score; while I’m all in favor of Hey Hey, you’re not allowed to spike their drinks anymore, fellas.  Besides, sometimes it’s a bad idea - I re-wrote some updated lyrics a while ago.

In fairness, we’ll end with the Margaret Whiting /Johnny Mercer version, which might have been socially acceptable in 1949 when it came out.

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Great music.  Can we retire the lyrics on this one?

OK.  That’s a good start.  I think I need some more Vodka now.

songs, children, holidays

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