In 2018, Miley Cyrus lit up the internet with what almost every headline writer called a “feminist” rewrite of Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby.” On The Tonight Show, she explained that she was uncomfortable with the Christmas classic’s original lyrics from 1953, in which Kitt lists all the extravagant gifts she desires. “Am I saying I’m gonna hook up with Santa if he buys me all this stuff?” Cyrus asked, before performing an updated version in which she asked Santa for men to stop talking over her and grabbing her ass because she could buy her own stuff, thank you very much.
The feminist publication Ms Magazine, on the other hand, included Kitt’s sultry tune on its list of the Top 10 Feminist Christmas Songs in 2020, with Julia Cornick writing, “[Kitt] was ahead of her time when it came to sex positivity during the ’50s and ’60s, embracing ‘her persona as a gold-digger who renders men into helpless little boys with her sexual power.’”
“Santa Baby” is clearly divisive—a recent survey by the polling website YouGov America showed it to be the least loved Christmas song, perhaps because studies show money to be one of the most uncomfortable topics for Americans to talk about. It’s certainly central to “Santa Baby,” which still scandalizes almost 70 years later.
“Santa Baby” wasn’t Kitt’s only Christmas song, though, and it gains vital context and nuance when heard next to her other holiday tunes.
It’s important to note that money factored into Kitt’s life and career from the start. The South Carolina native rose from poverty to fame after advancing in Katherine Dunham’s dance company, which took her to the glamorous social circles of Paris. In her 1989 autobiography The Confessions of a Sex Kitten, Kitt recalls how the legendary playboy Rubirosa wanted to take her to dinner at Maxim’s. When she complained that she had nothing to wear, he sent his assistant to take Kitt shopping for an outfit. At dinner, he gifted her an additional string of pearls.
As a performer, she often dealt with cashflow issues, but the luxury goods kept coming, frequently at shows. “Usually it would be older men sitting alone, but they would inevitably make a move of some kind to be introduced,” Kitt wrote. “One older gentleman who had gone through this same exercise had made himself known to me by sitting with a black ribboned box saying ‘Cartier’ obviously on display on his table, making me curious all through the second show as to whom it was for. The lone older gentleman brought it to my dressing room with the maître d’ and said, ‘I am an old-fashioned millionaire and would not only like to give you this gift, which is not much, but I also would like to give you the deed to my yacht standing in the harbor in San Francisco. It is made of all-Japanese teak wood, and has a crew of seven.’” She kept the bracelet in the box but passed on the yacht, wary of the upkeep costs.
The relationship between wealth and sexuality was the subtext (if not the entire text) of many of her songs, including “Monotonous,” her signature number from New Faces of 1952, the Broadway show that launched Kitt. In it, she complained about her humdrum life as rich men bought her elaborate, expensive gifts: “I met a rather amusing fool while on my way to Istanbul / He bought me the Black Sea for my swimming pool. Monotonous.”
“Santa Baby” seamlessly fit that artistic profile. Songwriters Philip Springer and Joan Javits wrote it specifically for Kitt in 1953 at the request of her record label, RCA Victor. Springer had a hard time squaring Kitt’s sensual image with Christmas, but he was purely the melody guy, and when lyricist Javits suggested the title “Santa Baby,” he knew they had something they could work with.
Javits’ lyrics were of a piece with the rest of Kitt’s songbook to that point, and according to Kitt’s daughter Kitt Shapiro, they got closer to the truth than Javits may…
Read More: The Story You Didn’t Know About Eartha Kitt’s ‘Santa Baby’