John Legend and Kelly Clarkson Performed Their Updated ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ on The Voice

John Legend and Kelly Clarkson Performed Their Updated ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ on The Voice

The controversial holiday classic gets a less problematic do-over.

Date December 4, 2019

Last month, John Legend and Kelly Clarkson, both coaches on NBC’s The Voice, dropped a less problematic version of the holiday classic, ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’

Controversy around the song kicked up in 2018 when radio stations banned the song due to how it portrays sexual consent. Legend and Clarkson’s “less date-rapey” version, as Vulture calls it, replaced several lyrics with more suitable lines, which they performed on The Voice this week.

For example, these are the original lyrics from the first verse:

“The neighbours might think (Baby it’s bad out there)/
Say what’s in this drink (No cabs to be had out there)/
I wish I knew how (Your eyes are like starlight now)/
To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)/
I ought to say “No, no, no sir” (Mind if I move in closer?)/
At least I’m gonna say that I tried (What’s the sense in hurtin’ my pride?)”

The updated lyrics go like this:

“What will my friends think? (I think they should rejoice)/
If I have one more drink? (It’s your body and your choice)/
Ooh you really know how (Your eyes are like starlight now)/
To cast a spell (One look at you and then I fell)/
I ought to say, ‘No, no, no, sir’
(Then you really ought to go, go, go)/
At least I’m gonna say that I tried (Well, Murray, he just pulled up outside).”

These newly woke lyrics riffing on the original by Dean Martin have been written by Legend and Insecure’s Natasha Rothwell.

Watch their full performance of the updated holiday classic here: