Baby, it's cold outside.

My, my what hath those boys from "Glee" wrought?

New this year is the following video from Mister Chase and Chris Salvatore, a recording of Frank Loesser's 1944 song  "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Proceeds from purchases of the the song will go to organizations that help provide crisis and suicide prevention for at-risk gay youth. Therefore, a rare link to an obscenely profit oriented itunes for anyone with a couple of bucks to spend for a most worthy cause :
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/baby-its-cold-outside-single/id490944273

Written as a duet to be performed with his wife Lynn Garland at their housewarming, she considered it "their song" and was furious when he sold it to MGM. The studio used it in a 1948 Esther Williams bathing beauty pic, "Neptune's Daughter". It was not considered (or used as) a Christmas song at the time. There were two performances of it in the movie; one between Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams, the other between Red Skelton and the under rated Betty Garrett. It won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Original Song for a Motion Picture. In Mr. Loesser's score, the duet's parts are noted as being for "wolf" and "mouse".

Here's the video, but I suggest that you skip it and watch the second version below, in which Mister Chase performs his lines in ASL.





I am really going to have to find out more about these two guys. They also made available an American Sign Language version of their video. If anyone has been reading my missives here, it should be becoming obvious that I've been struggling since giving up the anti-depressants and anti-anxietals. I got a huge boost from not only this version of the song, but especially from the ASL version. Years and years ago, a show on which I worked and for which I wrote a good deal of material was given an ASL performance. It was one of the proudest and happiest moments of my life. Just recalling it has tears welling up in my eyes, as emotions have been very clsoe to the surface these last few weeks. Very Special Thanks to Edonline for letting folks know about this.


 


And, for anyone who isn't familiar with the Fox tv show "Glee", here's the version they did last year. With so many lovely moments on the show, it amazes me that I do not watch it religiously. By the way, the two characters here, high school students, finally succumbed to each others charms a few episodes ago. I recorded it, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I wish Jerry Campbell had lived to see this. He'd have loved it.