‘Creepy and dated’: Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews find themselves in festive hot water

Stephen Price

Like clockwork every Christmas time, the much-loved Fairytale of New York is ‘debated’ online for its suitability to the modern world (and modern radio), with its ‘outdated’ language which some (who never seem to reveal themselves) might, just might, find offensive.

I can only speak for myself here, but as a gay man, I can safely say I’ve never been offended by the song.

The devastating, ‘I could have been someone’, line always cuts deep, and it’s a damn good song. Call him anything you want, Kirsty. Go on!

Fairytale of New York is not alone on the Christmas ‘everything is offensive’ hit list, however, with beloved Welsh artists Cerys Matthews and Tom Jones also finding themselves in the firing line each and every year thanks to their much-loved take on the Christmas classic, Baby it’s Cold Outside.

Baby It’s Cold Outside features on Reload – the 34th album by Tom Jones, released in 1999.

Besides the Cerys Matthews duet, the album contains 15 duets with a range of artists including Van Morrison, Stereophonics, Robbie Williams, and Portishead, recorded with their usual record producers and in their usual studios.

The album relaunched Tom’s career back in the late 90s, and helped cement his status as an ongoing, relevant national icon.

Reload became the highest seller of Jones’ career, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart in 1999 and again in 2000.

Baby it’s Cold Outside was released in December 1999, and for a time enjoyed regular airplay year on year.

Until it didn’t.

Controversy

For decades, the song has faced criticism among some listeners for the alleged implications of its lyrics, with elements such as the line, “Say, what’s in this drink?” and the “wolf’s” unrelenting pressure for the “mouse” to remain in spite of her repeated suggestions that she should go home being described as suggestive of sexual harassment or even date rape.

I don’t want to enter the annual debate about whether “Baby It’s Cold Outside” should be cancelled (connotations aside, it’s a great song IMO), but I stumbled upon the video for Tom Jones’ version (my favorite), and holy shit it doesn’t help its defense. Let’s break it down:

— Secrets and Laws (@secretsandlaws) December 24, 2022

However, others have noted that cultural expectations at the time of the song’s writing were such that ladies were not socially permitted to spend the night with gentlemen to whom they were not married and that the woman states that she wants to stay, while “What’s in this drink?” was a common idiom of the period used to sidestep social expectations by blaming one’s actions on the influence of alcohol.

Love Hard

As reported by LadBible’s Joe Harker: “There’s a Christmas movie streaming on Netflix which has reworked the classic, if controversial, Christmas tune of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ with some new lyrics.”

Love Hard, starring Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang, sees the two cast members meet up after he catfishes her and she travels to spend Christmas with him.

The two actors sing a rendition of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ in front of Yang’s family, only for the sake of 2024, they’ve changed up some of the lyrics.

Instead of singing the classic version, they’ve come up with their own one where Yang makes it clear that Dobrev’s character can leave whenever she wants.

When she sings ‘I really can’t stay’, he replies, ‘no problem, there’s the door’.

When she sings ‘my mother will start to worry’ and ‘my father will be pacing the floor’, he sings back that she can borrow his phone to call.

Praise

This version has been praised by Netflix fans for being an actual good reworking of the original song, with viewers commenting that ‘the writers absolutely nailed these lyrics’.

Some Netflix viewers have declared it ‘the best version I’ve heard’.

Never realized how creepy “Baby, Its Cold Outside” was until now
Why are you coercing me to stay even after i said no?🌚

— Shelby Megan🇧🇸🤍 (@shelbymeg_) November 18, 2021

Someone else added that they were ‘actually dreading them updating this song’ but said the version from Love Hard turned out to be ‘amazing’ and ‘very well done’.

History

The original version of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ was written in 1944 by Frank Loesser for himself and his wife, Lynn Garland, to sing at their housewarming party as a way of telling all of their guests to clear off for the night.

The song went on to become a part of the 1949 romcom Neptune’s Daughter – winning the Oscar in 1950 for Best Original Song.

baby its cold outside has been on my hate list for a while and it isnt even bc its creepy its also just not a good song https://t.co/Exb9pVF32g

— Cam (@fishbands) December 10, 2024

Harker writes: “Some of the lyrics to ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ may sound problematic to modern audiences, particularly lines like ‘say what’s in this drink’ and how during the entire song it seems like the lady keeps saying she needs to leave, while the fella tries to convince her to stick around for a night of you-know-what.”

baby its cold outside is creepy but if you dont think about it,.,,it is seriously the peak of all christmas songs i swear to hell

— gads 🍪🥐 (@gads_koookwee) September 30, 2024

He adds: “However, at the time the song was written, women faced a lot of stigma for spending the night with men they weren’t married to and another interpretation of the lyrics is that the couple would very much like to spend the night with each other and just need to make sure they’ve got some good excuses lined up for why the lady had to stay round.”

As anyone listening or watching closely can tell, in both this version and so many before it, the duo are clearly and mutually flirting with an age-old tongue firmly planted in cheek – you can also hear the fun both are having with it.

It’s also important to make the distinction between fiction and autobiography.

Just like Tom’s other ‘controversial’ track, Delilah, and any murder or stalker movie, horror novel etc. – it’s storytelling – so why doesn’t music get the same intelligent response?

Being the moody git that I am, I’m boycotting American rot-saturated Netflix, so I’ll be enjoying old festive favourites on DVD or in books myself.

I’ll also be sticking to the Cerys and Tom version.

On CD, that is.

‘Bloody freezing innit.’