“Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro
“Honey” is a term of endearment which the narrator (Bobby Goldsboro) uses towards his significant other. It is revealed later in the song that she has passed away. And as noted in the trivia section, the way he goes about expressing his affection for his departed lover is a bit unorthodox. Or another way of looking at it is that he’s just being frank. That is to say that two aspects of her personality which he misses the most was her being quite emotional and unintentionally humoring him. And at the end of the day, the main sentiment that is put forth is that he does in fact long for his “Honey”.
Facts about “Honey”
This classic was composed entirely by Bobby Russell (1940-1992) and produced by Bobby Montgomery (1937-2014).
“Honey” proved to be the signature song of Goldsboro’s career. In fact it performed phenomenally-well. For instance it flew to the summit of the Billboard Hot 100. It also managed to reach number one in four other countries. Moreover it peaked at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart. Additionally it is said to have sold 1,000,000 copies within the time span of 3 weeks. Even by modern standards, selling a million copies within just a matter of weeks is a major accomplishment.
This song was released on 17 February 1968 via United Artists Records. And it is featured on a Goldsboro album which itself is entitled “Honey”.
Goldsboro is actually the second artist known to have recorded “Honey”. The first would be one Bob Shane (1934-2020) who was formerly a member of a group called the Kingston Trio.
One interesting fact about this track is that it actually reached number 1 on the Hot 100 on the date of 7 April 1968. In other words it was the first song to top the list after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on 4 April 1968.
Is “Honey” a horrible song?
Interesting to note is that whereas the track was in fact a major hit, it has dealt with its fair share of criticism throughout the years. For example, it has earned titles such as being dubbed one of the “World’s Worst Songs” and CNN even calling it “The Worst Song of All Time”. One of the noted reasons such hatred for the tune exists is because to some listeners the singer comes off, in the words of Stereogum, as being “an absolute f*****g ***hole”. But it has also been put forth that the lyrics are overly-sappy and the vocals unconventional.
Born helpless, crying is a basic human need. We spend too much of our lives trying to convince ourselves that we need not cry, we need not be rescued from our fragile state into which we are born. We want to believe that we do not need the other. Honey invites us to cry. The invitation is so compelling it can anger us. Honey tells of all of that, and it is beautiful because it calls us into our humanity, which includes our inescapable, un-dismissible need for the other. Honey is only a song, but it tells of human life as it really is.
Fred, What you just said, makes total sense. Blessings to you, sir.
Honey is a beautiful song about a man remembering the love of his life.
I absolutely agree. It humanizes us all.
“Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro is lyrics I personally relate to and feel deeply because I
still feel the loss of my truly soulmate wife 9 years ago! It is not sappy to me. It provides
deep, difficult personal therapy because I loved Marilyn so very much. Men, it is a
real, human need to cry in private, it does help.
Same for me Steve Petry.
This song came out 2 days before my 25 yr old brother died….so my mom played it a lot! I still have the 45.
All these so called musical experts, won’t know good music if it ran over them. After all these years after my wife passed, this song still brings back memories. She loved her yard and worked constantly on it. Her memorial is now a weed patch.
Love the song but one wonders what Honey died of? It says the angels came in early spring, while she was alone. She easily cries….found to be crying as mentioned in the song. Did she have depression? Did she commit suicide? Had she been ill?
The various interpretations of what led to Honey’s passing are what make a person listen to it time & again. Further, how old was she? Even though Bobby Goldsboro himself was young when he recorded it (& Bobby Russell, the composer, was about the same age), the phrase “young at heart” is usually used to describe somewhat who is chronologically older, so we can’t be sure that Honey was actually a young woman. To complicate things further, Russell indicated he was inspired to write the song by the sight of a tree, not someone’s untimely death, so we can’t be sure that even he could have answered your questions, Curious—or mine.
I thought it was his daughter he was singing about.
Absolutely……Maybe a daughter who is slightly ‘touched’…”kinda dumb and kinga smart”…Who buys a puppy for his wife? It seems like a young daughter who went through growing up, “And love grew up”.
Bobby Goldsboro’s timeless, immortal classic “Honey”- regardless of how the titular character passed away- stands as one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed, and anyone who believes otherwise, such as all those ‘Rolling Stone” uh, well, stoners, are seriously intellectually-deficient mental midgets! I fell in love with this song at the age of five in 1968, and I am still in love with it today, at sixty-two! Just for my two cents’ worth, it seems rather obvious to me, ( I took a couple of psychology classes in college ) that “Honey”, whoever she was in relation to the narrator, indeed killed herself while apparently in a state of manic depression. All the minute, subtle clues are there in the lyrics- the author simply did not wish to club the listener over the head with the harsh reality of the situation. This type of thing happens in life on an almost daily basis, so there is no need to condemn this wonderful, beautiful song as some thing “weird”. The narrator’s regret at being a tiny bit mean to this obviously-fragile woman at times seems to be the song’s most pervasive point. I only hope that many more talented artists will continue to cover it from time to time, as befits this timeless classic- just, as Goldsboro requested, keep it toned down and restrained, without all the energy, brass, and percussion. Excelsior!
For all you pop psych people, you’ve got it wrong. The song was inspired by a friend of Bobby’s, whose wife died of cancer (she didn’t end her life because she was depressed). In the song, she was crying in the middle of the day because she got the bad news from the doctor about the test results, that her illness was terminal.
It’s sad, how many people today have a problem with a song that expresses love. That’s probably because if you ask people today who they love the most, they’ll look in a mirror and kiss their reflection.
The inspiration for this song was a friend of Bobby’s, whose wife died of cancer. I’m guessing that in the song, where she’s crying in the middle of the day it’s because she got the test results that said her condition was terminal and she didn’t have much time left. And the part where she’s alone when the angels came, is probably her wish to spend her last days at home, not in hospice care, and as usually happens, he probably stepped out for a minute and sadly, she died. (It’s happened in my family m ore than once. One of my aunts, for example, was at my uncle’s beside almost 24/7, and when she took just a few minutes to get a cup of coffee in the hospital cafeteria, my uncle died. Unlike all those hokey old movies or phony stories that celebrity’s families like to tell the media, people tend to die alone. It’s not something you want to do in front of an audience.
And for all the people who make fun of or criticize this song, it’s a sad reflection of modern society, and how incapable most people today are of any real love. If you asked a lot of people today who they oved the most, I’m willing to bet they’ll look in a mirror and kiss their reflection.
I remember this as a sad song in my youth. My wife died about 7 years ago of ALS and the song meaning hits home. I miss her dearly as she tried her best to put on a brave front for the 15 months after her diagnosis. She was truly my better half…
When you find someone and meld in you minds and hearts, then you lose them, it hurts a lot. My husband passed in 2011 and I still have days when my honey is on mind and I am in tears. He was killed in a farm tractor accident.