‘Bob Dylan? He’s like Confucius’: Cerys Matthews interviewed

‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ was a Christmas classic for more than half a century until people suddenly began to worry that it was about yuletide date rape. ‘It was because of the video Tom Jones and I made,’ says Cerys Matthews, in her smoky Welsh lilt. She recorded a cover with Jones in 1999. The video showed the craggy old Welsh crooner slip something in her drink that turns Cerys into a high camp vamp. ‘The song is really innocent and beautiful and fun — it’s got a huge heap of humour and wit and I love it. That song is not our enemy. That woman is a strong woman. She’s there because she wants to be! It’s cold outside. They’re making love. Come on!’

Cerys herself was exposed to explicitrecord content when she was a child. ‘Famine, religious persecution, genocide, injustice, political manoeuvrings.’ She makes a list. ‘I had a book of Irish ballads when I was about nine and it’s full of war songs where they’re maimed and they’re injured and they’re insane and they’re eyeless and legless and armless and they’re putting out a bowl to beg.