Reality Chuck parses the lyrics correctly. The song is about society and the prejudicial attitudes toward unmarried sex in those days and the double standard applied to men and women.
The woman in the song is defying the rules. It’s a rock song a generation early. The performers who do the song recognize the equality between the man and women, He is never Satan tempting the poor virgin. She is strong and knows her wants and needs are the same as his.
People misinterpret songs all the time. Sting’s “Every Breath You Take” is about a stalker but people made it into a wedding song. Same with REM’s “The One I Love,” which is about a guy dumping a woman but all people hear is the title.
The reverse is happening here. The song is ambiguous only if you wrench it out of context. Otherwise it is crystal clear. It’s not meant to be representative of every man-woman interaction. In this one time and place the woman wants to get laid and is weighing whether society’s disapproval is going to overwhelm that.
Holy smoke, there’s even a Monty Python reference to make:
I think that it’s possible to view this song under a few different lenses, but I find the idea that it’s actually a feminist song to be a little . . . contrived and convenient.
The song doesn’t “say” what you think, nor is it “about” sexual double standards, as Exapno Mapcase says.
You can apply criticism to explore those ideas, but the song is just as much about rape culture as it is about feminist liberation. One critical lens doesn’t discount the other.
If I were describing what the song is about, I’d say that it’s a song about a sexually charged flirtation between two people, who communicate in the gendered vernacular of their time (1940s).
Just heard this song in my office building lobby, pretty sure it was the Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé version. My office building loves Michael Bublé. Anyway, I don’t care one way or the other, but why couldn’t this station just stop playing without all the fanfare? Probably nobody would care or notice if they just didn’t play it.
That’s entirely wrong. That is not what that line meant at all.
The song is clearly, unambiguously about a woman who one hundred percent wants to stay, but a prudish society doesn’t want her to make her own decisions. Her boyfriend’s trying to give her an excuse to stay, not force her to.
Another vote for the woman is mainly concerned about what others think. If you keep bringing this up over and over your main concern isn’t that you don’t want to stay. But sometimes people don’t want to give the real reason as a primary reason which leads to confusion and problems. She still has the opportunity to de-confuse things. And I do not equate staying with agreeing to have sex at all.
Note: I routinely ask all the time, when someone offers me a beverage, “What’s in this?” There’s a lot of things I don’t want to consume: alcohol, sugar, caffeine, etc.
It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask with no implications whatsoever.
(I am amazed by people who are surprised when I don’t take a glass of wine when offered. Have they never met a non-drinker before?)
But we don’t live in that prudish society anymore. A woman can just stay or not stay all she wants and (almost) no one cares. So when a modern singer sings it, it sends the wrong message.
And while we’re on the subject, Santa Baby sucks, by anyone.
That the station announced the discontinuation of the track does sound like a bit of promotional virtue-signaling.
For some reason that juxtaposition of names causes a bit of disturbance…
So we can only appreciate it as social archaeology archival material, an exapmle of *What We Now Know Is Wrong? *
I mean, sure, I’ve been advocating no game-playing, no “interpreting the signals”, go ahead and tell me what you want, interaction for decades. But hey, if some people prefer it that way…
Ad BTW I still enjoy the Bennett/Gaga advertisement version, and that throws in an added disruptive factor of the major age difference. I suppose it will have to be a “guilty pleasure.”
It’s not just the “what’s in this drink?” line. It’s all of the lyrics. Everything the woman says is a polite no that deflects blame, which is not an uncommon way to say no to avoid the guy getting angry at you. Consider “I’m not looking for a relationship right now” or “It’s not you, it’s me.” It’s the same sort of thing.
Some have brought up the idea that it is token resistance to save face. But I see two problems with that. The first is just how many of these she has to give. It just seems like she would have given in long before this. Heck, in the actual lyrics, she never actually does give in. And, when she does give in, it’s just “okay, one more drink.” She never says yes, just acting like she was badgered into it because he wouldn’t stop countering her polite excuses.
Then there’s the second problem: the underlying idea of the token no is problematic. It was basically the thing that was used to justify not taking “no” for an answer, saying that, even if she says no, she doesn’t really mean it. You had men require an unequivocal “no” while women were encouraged to never be directly negative and hurt the guy.
Even without that, what you guys are saying is still embracing a sexist system. Why did women have to give a token no in your framework? Because people would think badly of her. But why that? Because women weren’t allowed to control their bodies and have sex with who they wanted. They were judged as sluts and whores for enjoying sex. The entire trope was based on the sexist mores of the day.
Now, saying all this, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. That’s a common misunderstanding of these types of critiques. I fully know that the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp are racist as fuck. But I still really enjoy the song (especially the harmony.) However, I do understand why it might not be played on a Disney music radio station.
And I won’t act like “You’re just reading too much into it.” or “It’s old, so it’s fine.” No, it’s old, and I get there was no nefarious intent, but it still is problematic. And that’s okay.
Well, they aren’t singing it as a flirtatious song. One just starts signing spontaneously and the other joins in while they are in opposite aisles of a bookstore.
Because it’s one of the songs I have heard every year during the holiday season my entire life, just like dtilque said —
I’m not Christian, so Christmastime has no religious significance to me. It’s a season of the year, and has seasonal associations based on my personal experiences. So whatever songs I have routinely heard during what I consider Christmas time is Christmas music to me.
This sounds like the “Why didn’t they just call the police” movie dilemma. Because then everything would be resolved in the first six minutes and you wouldn’t have a movie.
She’s making multiple excuses so you can have the flirtatious back-and-forth theme of the song without it being a twenty second track.
I’m basically meh about the whole thing. Like Tom Lehrer said; “when correctly viewed, everything is lewd”. Personally of all the Christmas songs I dislike I would more prefer a ban on “White Christmas” more because I dislike the artist than anything else.
As for creepy songs, lets face it ----- some strange older man singing
It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood
A neighborly day for a beauty
Could you be mine?
Would you be mine?
to little children? Now there is a sign of something!
Well, I guess the song on the thread title. I thought this song was a source of controversy for at least several years now, so I’m surprised that this is the first most people are getting wind of it. Haven’t we had threads years back about this?
Somehow it seems that any song about winter is automatically considered a Christmas song. When you think about it, there’s nothing in the lyrics of “Jingle Bells,” “Sleigh Ride,” or “Winter Wonderland” that mentions Christmas, but all are considered Christmas songs. The only mention of Christmas in “Frosty the Snowman” is the last line, but I’ve heard versions where that last line doesn’t have him promising to be back on Christmas, but merely to be back again someday.
