Photo: MGM
Although several radio stations across the country havepulled the Christmas song from the airwavesthis year, one radio station in Kentucky decided to embrace the controversial tune.
“BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE! We like it and we’re not afraid to play it on WAKY for the next couple of hours!” the radio station wrote on theirFacebook pageon Sunday, shortly after the marathon began at 8 a.m.
“I’m not sure why it’s controversial,” Joe Fredele, director of programming for WAKY,local CBS News outlet WLKY. “We’ve played this song for years, you know, this song is older than WAKY is. It’s almost 70 years old.”
“All it is … is a dialogue between a man and a woman, and at the end of the song, you hear them harmonize together, so they’re agreeing basically,” he said, according toFox News.
Despite the protests of some, many believe that the controversy is unwarranted, including actressJoan Collins, who argued on Monday that the backlash around the song is an example of howconsent culture has become “out of control.”
Deana Martin, whose father Dean Martin recorded the song in 1959, also described the uproar as “just insane,” while actorWilliam Shatnerhas encouraged listeners todemand radio stations play the song.
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While the song’s composer, Frank Loesser, died in 1969, his 74-year-old daughter Susan believes her father would be “furious” that some stations banned the song.
“People used to say, ‘What’s in this drink?’ as a joke. You know, ‘This drink is going straight to my head so what’s in this drink?’ Back then it didn’t mean you drugged me,” she toldNBC Newsearlier this month.
Although she “absolutely” gets why people would find that line concerning now, she added, “I think it would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time,” explaining that it was written in 1944, not 2018.
However, despite the controversy, several versions of the songsurged in salesand streaming and continued to draw airplay on the radio in the latest tracking week, according to Nielsen Music.
source: people.com
