Song of the Day 12/31: Ella Fitzgerald, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

We apparently have the Romans to thank for the annual night of bacchanalia that accompanies the final hours of the waning year. But it’s German folklore, which held that how you rang in midnight determined your luck for the coming year, that made the midnight kiss a tradition. That’s why New Year’s Eve is, after Valentine’s Day, the second-biggest date night of the year.

I haven’t been single since the early days of the Carter administration, but back when I was single having a date for New Year’s Eve was crucial. It was important in 1947, too, when this song was written by Frank Loesser of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” fame. Like many holiday standards, it wasn’t intended as a holiday song. In her biography of her father, Susan Loesser wrote, “the singer, madly in love, is making a (possibly rash) commitment far into the future. … It always annoyed my father when the song was sung during the holidays.”

Well, he didn’t mean for “Baby It’s Cold Outside” to sound date-rapey, either, but a lyricist can’t control how listeners and record producers respond. The song has been covered dozens of times, almost always on Christmas albums. Ella Fitzgerald released it on her 1960 LP, “Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas.”

The song was first recorded by Margaret Whiting the year Loesser published it, but the Orioles’ version was the first to reach the charts. Their 78-rpm single, released in November 1949, hit No. 9.