Since a couple of months ago! OK. Maybe two years ago…?*

The song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was written in 1944 and at no time ever was any question raised that the lyrics could be interpreted as a man trying to lace another unwilling lady’s drink so he could rape her!

That has all changed now largely due to the #MeToo movement.

The supposedly controversial lyrics are said to be “Well maybe just a half a drink more // I’ll put some records on while I pour // The neighbors might think // Baby it’s bad out there // Say what’s in this drink?”

It is sung as a duet by a man and a woman. The woman is (not forcibly) trying to leave a date, while the man is trying to make her stay.

The song is performed as a playful intimacy between the two and how anyone can interoperate as a ‘rape date’ song shows what a warped mind they have.

Now, 74 years later, the song is being banned by various radio stations in the US and Canada.

Complaints by some listeners has caused the ban that is incredibly increasing.

Star 102 host Glenn Anderson said that although the song was written in a different time, the lyrics felt “manipulative and wrong”.

“The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, but in a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place.”

I agree the #MeToo movement has done an excellent job in exposing and prosecuting the male monsters who have used their power to manipulate vulnerable women into their rooms and rape them.

However, they do their case no good when they allow a ridiculous crusade to be executed against a song that was written over seventy years ago about flirting and not rape!

That one line, S’ay what’s in this drink?” was about the alcohol content NOT a ‘rape’ pill, for heaven’s sake!!

*Two years ago, Minnesota couple Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski rewrote the lyrics to include lines about consent, such as a response to the woman’s line “I ought to say no, no, no” with the man saying: “You reserve the right to say no.”

I well remember the days when ‘Gay” meant being happy and was a common Christian name given to a woman.

We “look through a glass darkly” now even more that when St Paul interpreted it to mean “We do not know. We do not see everything clearly.”

In 2018 we look at everything to find a darker meaning than the original intent.

Baby, I feel cold inside, And it’s my heart.