In a nutshell, I had to get a new computer; luckily my spreadsheets with all my song links and information was recovered. However, the actual songs on my iTunes library, while still on my iPod, were not backed up. That is still a project to be done, getting the songs back from my iPod, which I wound up being able to do. But first, since I really don't like "double issues", I spent the last two days brining my SNS 100 up to date, waiving the requirement that the songs had to be available on download. Five issues later, I am happy to say that I am up to date. When I was "away", The Revivalists had a fourth week at the top with "All My Friends", and then Caroline Rose spent three weeks at the summit with "Jeannie Becomes a Mom", and finally this week, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats featuring Lucius take the prize with "Coolin' Out". More on that later.
Of course it's the holiday season now, and many of the radio stations have, some since the beginning of November, played Christmas music, 24/7. All the classics are back, including some new songs as well. And, since this is 2018, a bit of controversy has arisen.
On November 30, Cleveland radio station WDOK pulled the song "Baby It's Cold Outside" from their holiday rotation. They cited the nature of the lyrics which deal with a woman visiting a man at his home for drinks during a storm, at which time, the woman wants to leave, only to have the man convince her to stay, giving her many reasons to do so. The probable implication is that the man is not taking "no" for an answer, but apparently the real kicker is the lyric by the woman, "hey, what's in this drink?". While the original intent was the curiosity factor on the woman's behalf thinking her drink might be spiked, in the light of recent issues regarding harassment and the #me too movement which started in the wake of comedian Bill Cosby drugging several woman's drinks, and was recently convicted, was interpreted as being offensive. The controversy spread to other radio stations who also pulled the song.
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| Dean Martin recorded what would become the definitive version of 'Baby It's Cold Outside" in 1959. |
The recent wave of offensiveness, has affected many facets of society, from political to corporate America, to the entertainment industry. Several men, such as producer Harvey Weinstein, NBC's Today anchor Matt Lauer, to CBS's CEO Leslie Moonves, had been fired or forced to resign following accusations by several women of unwelcome sexual advances or otherwise inappropriate sexual behavior.
Now, while this issue is indeed justifiably serious, what this actually has to do with a holiday song written back in 1944, has perplexed the mind, as we lived in a different time.
Perhaps, it's time to look a bit more at this song, and its history, as well as its effect on myself growing up and its appearances in my life.
As I mentioned, you have to go back to 1944, when songwriter Frank Loessner, responsible for music and lyrics for such hits as Guys and Dolls, and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, wrote a song that he and his wife could sing at parties. The male-female response song really was a hit with partygoers.
By 1949, Loessner signed a contract with MGM to provide the music score to the movie Neptune's Daughter, and decided to include "Baby It's Cold Outside" in that score, much to his wife's dismay, now having to "share" the song with everyone else. But it proved worthwhile for Loessner, as the song won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1949.
Loessner, who two years earlier wrote "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve"? didn't consider "Baby It's Cold Outside" a holiday season song, just that it took place in winter. In fact, many of the versions of the song were released in late winter or even spring in 1949. Even back then, it was recorded by male-female duos, among them Pearl Bailey & Hot Lips Page; Dinah Shore & Buddy Clark, Ella Fitzgerald & Eddie Jordan; Esther Williams and Ricardo Montelban, (who perform it in the movie) and even by Loessner and his wife Lynn Garland themselves.
Several versions came out in the 1950's, including the likes of everyone from Louis Armstrong, Eddie Fisher and Sammy Davis, Jr, but it was the 1959 version by Davis' fellow rat-packer, Dean Martin that really caught fire. Included in his album A Winter Romance, which also included holiday standards such as "Winter Wonderland", "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", and "White Christmas", it became widely known as a holiday entry.
However, I had never heard the song at all growing up; it was never played at all on the radio stations that I had listened to in my formative years; it was dominated by the likes of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", "Little Saint Nick" and "Jingle Bell Rock", but my Mom, whenever the temperature plunged, would say "baby it's cold outside", definitely a reference to the song; at the time, I just figured it was just a song that she listened to growing up (she was 21 when the song did come out).
Various versions were released up until 1972 at which time, there were no new versions of the song for the next eighteen years; probably it had run its course. And again, I never consciously ever heard the song aside from my Mom singing part of it.
Barry Manilow recorded the song for his 1990 Christmas album Because It's Christmas; it was a duet with country artist K.T. Oslin. Since then, there has been a version released just about every year, although I still never really heard the song, it was mostly relegated to being an album cut of sorts, with more well-known songs standing out.
That perhaps changed with the 2003 movie Elf was released. The film, starting Will Farrell and Zooey Deschanel featured a scene where Deschanel's character was taking a shower in the department store where she works, singing the songs, at which time Buddy, played by Farrell, walks in and sings the duet with her, unknown to her at first. In that film's closing credits, the song is sung by Deschanel with jazz/blues musician Leon Redbone.
The following year, I finally heard the song for the first time, as a version by Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton was getting airplay on New York radio station WLTW. The song was from Stewart's album Stardust, The Great American Songbook Volume III. I thought to myself, "hey, THAT's the song my Mom used to sing". Since then, subsequent versions---and there were several that were released each year, got airplay on various stations. In 2007, country singer Martina McBride added her vocals to Dean Martin's vintage version (which had featured background female singers singing the woman's part of the song).
Since 1999, I have compiled my "Christmas/Holiday Top 100", which I had revised in 2005, and then again every year since 2010. The Stewart/Parton version was a mainstay on the list, and in 2013, it was joined by Martin's version (with or without McBride). This year, the former sits at #44 on the 2018 list, while Dean's is at #13.
As for my weekly blog, the song has appeared twice: American Idol sweethearts Haley Reinhart and Casey Abrams reached #52 in 2011, and a Idina Menzel/Michael Buble duet got to #46 three years later.
For awhile you just couldn't avoid the song, and to be honest, it was starting to wear thin on me, with all the various versions coming out. Radio would pick one each season, but, except for Dean Martin's version, you wouldn't heard it at all the following year. Perhaps it was time to retire it once and for all.
But the two versions I listen to are great, and with the undue controversy that came out this year, it has, if anything, given me renewed vigor. And with my Mom's passing at the beginning of the year and it being my first Christmas without her, the song has an extra special meaning. In my opinion, although I am sensitive to some of the issues of today, to blame a song that's over seventy years old for today's woes is just wrong. Times have changed for sure, and unfortunately, even the smallest things offend people. Fine, but to take it out on what has became a harmless holiday standard that was written for fun in the first place, between a husband and a wife, is just unwarranted.
The public apparently knows it, too. After the banning, WDOK held an online poll for its listener as to whether to reinstate the song. Up to 97% of listeners voted to bring back the song to the airwaves.
Songs over the years have been banned, but it is usually upon release. "They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa" in the Summer of 1966 is a classic example, as it dealt with mental issues. Other songs were banned for sexual innuendo or drugreferences, but "Baby It's Cold Outside" was unusual in that, seventy years later is taken off the air for issues that weren't on the radar back then. Perhaps those who are offended might take solace in another version that was performed in Neptune's Daughter, that being by Betty Garrett (later of All in the Family and Laverne & Shirley fame) and Red Skelton. In that version, she wants to stay and he wants her to leave.
Harassment and date rape are serious issues, of course, and the #MeToo movement is justified. But please don't take it out on a fun holiday song.
TO THE NOW: Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats (who incidentally also recorded "Baby It's Cold Outside" in a 2017 duet with Julia Lewis which I may consider adding next week), tops my list this week with the Southside Johnny-influenced "Coolin' Out" which features the band Lucius. It's the band's second leader, following "S.O.B." in 2015. The song drops Caroline Rose's "Jeannie Becomes a Mom" to the runner-up spot. However, two big movers persist in the top 10, most notably Katy Perry's "Cozy Little Christmas" which jumps 22-4. Perry has cooled off considerably from the early part of the decade when she became the second artist (after Michael Jackson) to pull five national #1 songs from an album. The song has been getting a lot of airplay (mostly from adult contemporary stations that play Christmas music this time of year) and has an awesome beat with reminds me a bit of Carolina Beach music (with a pop flair). It's been going through my head a lot during the past few weeks. It's a good bet to hit the top next week. If it does, it would be her first SNS #1 after coming close with "Firework" and "Last Friday Night". Only one Christmas song---"I Feel It In My Bones" by The Killers, in 2012---has hit the top spot on my SNS 100.
Shannon Marsyada's "Oceans", from her forthcoming album with was funded by Kickstarter, makes a jump from 10-6 and is also a contender for the top spot, probably early in 2019.
THIS YEAR'S 'FEEL IT STILL': 2018 has been a horrible year for contemporary pop music, at least in my opinion, and the less said the better. And it's been a full year since the last rock crossover, that being Portugal. The Man's "Feel It Still", which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the pop airplay chart. Of course, the cool follow-ups "Live in the Moment" and "Tidal Wave" were nowhere to be found on the big chart. I've been away for awhile, so I was surprised and pleased to see Panic! At the Disco's "High Hopes" in the national Top 5, and also topping the pop airplay chart, and alt-rock chart. Although, like "Feel.." not traditional guitar-driven rock---the song resembles latter-day Fall Out Boy---it's nice to see the occasional rock song up there. The Las Vegas-based band has been around since 2005 and has had many alt-rock hits, and, unlike many of the rock crossovers this decade, even had a previous Billboard Top 10 hit: 2006's "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" reached #7.
This week on my SNS 100, "High Hopes" moves 13-10. It's far and away the band's biggest song in my blog era; their previous best was 2013's "Miss Jackson" which reached #29 here.
WHAT'S AHEAD: Although I traditionally do my final regular blog of the year the week right before Christmas (which this year would be dated December 23rd), next week, December 16th will be my final one of the year. It's been a rough year on many levels and with the holiday rush, and my situation with restoring my iTunes library, it'll be easy to call it a year. Of course there will be my annual Top 100 of 2018 which should be interesting, since very little recognizable pop hits are in it, and even the most popular alternative rock hits might be missing this year, although the music in my opinion is top-notch. I am not sure when the first blog of 2019 will be; the last couple of years, for different reasons, it didn't come until the end of January or early February. 2019 will be the final year that I will closely be following new music, putting a wrap on six decades of musical memories. That, of course, may change if popular music turns back from a hip-hop fest to melodic soul, but the way it's going, it probably will be more of the same. Too bad. However, the blog will still be around; I plan it to cover much of the music from the 1960's onward.
Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves 100
December 9, 2018
| This Week | Last Week | ARTIST-Title | Weeks on List |
| 1 | 2 |
NUMBER ONE:
Album: Tearing at the Seams
|
8 |
| 2 | 1 | Caroline Rose - Jeannie Becomes a Mom | 9 |
| 3 | 3 | Kurt Vile - Loading Zones | 11 |
| 4 | 22 |
TOP 20 IMPACT OF THE WEEK:
(Single Only)
|
4 |
| 5 | 5 | Imagine Dragons - Natural | 12 |
| 6 | 12 | Shannon Marsyada - Oceans | 5 |
| 7 | 8 | Greeting Committee - 17 | 11 |
| 8 | 6 | The Essex Green - Smith & 9th | 10 |
| 9 | 7 | The Revivalists - All My Friends | 13 |
| 10 | 13 | Panic at the Disco - High Hopes | 11 |
| 11 | 4 | Real Estate - Time | 13 |
| 12 | 15 | Molly Burch- Torn To Pieces | 10 |
| 13 | 24 |
MOVER OF THE WEEK:
Album: Take Good Care
|
4 |
| 14 | 11 | Curtis Harding - It's Not Over | 13 |
| 15 | 21 | Amy Shark - I Said Hi | 6 |
| 16 | 9 | Winnetka Bowling League -On the 5 | 12 |
| 17 | 20 | Weezer - Can't Knock the Hustle | 7 |
| 18 | 10 | Florence + the Machine - Patricia | 11 |
| 19 | 18 | Kungs f. Jamie N Commons - Don't You Know | 11 |
| 20 | 23 | Cayucas - Jessica WJ | 8 |
|
|
Songs
with the greatest increase in favorite points over the prior week.
● Songs
with 25 or more plays on my iPod.
▲ Songs with 50 or more plays on my iPod.
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