| "Honey" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Bobby Goldsboro | ||||
| from the album Honey | ||||
| Released | 1968 | |||
| Format | Vinyl | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 3:55 | |||
| Label | United Artists | |||
| Writer(s) | Bobby Russell | |||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA) | |||
| Bobby Goldsboro singles chronology | ||||
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"Honey," also known as "Honey (I Miss You)," is a song written by Bobby Russell. He first produced it with former Kingston Trio member Bob Shane. Then he gave it to American singer Bobby Goldsboro who recorded it for his tenth album Honey.
The song's narrator mourns his deceased lover, beginning with him looking at a tree in their garden, remembering how "it was just a twig" on the day she planted it (with his disapproval). This single about the loss of a loved one hit #1 the week Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.
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It was released as a single in the U.S. in 1968 (see 1968 in music) and spent five weeks at #1 the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, from April 7 to May 11 (the 200th song to do so), and three weeks atop Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. It was preceded on the Billboard Hot 100 by "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding and was followed by Archie Bell & the Drells' "Tighten Up." It was Goldsboro's only #1 hit on the Pop Singles and Country Singles charts and it was his first song to top the Adult Contemporary chart. "Honey" reached #2 on the UK Singles Chart and a re-release of the single in England in 1975 (see 1975 in music) reached #2 again. In Australia, it spent four weeks at #1 on the ARIA Charts, replacing The Beatles' "Lady Madonna", and was the #6 song of 1968.
One day in early 1968, Bobby Goldsboro was sitting at home in his apartment in Nashville, Tennessee, when Larry Henley (the falsetto singer from the group The Newbeats) walked in to talk to him. Larry Henley had said that he had just heard this nice new song that Bobby Russell had played for him. Bobby Russell's office at Acuff-Rose Music was right across the street from where Goldsboro lived. So they went over to Bobby Russell's office. Russell told them the song was called "Honey" and played it on a guitar for Henley and Goldsboro. At the end of the song, Henley said it was a great song. Goldsboro just thought that the song "didn't do anything for him," he later remembered. And Goldsboro walked back to his apartment.
A few weeks later, he was with his new producer, Bob Montgomery (his producer had been Jack Gold, who produced "Little Things," "See The Funny Little Clown," and most of his pre-'68 songs). Montgomery and Goldsboro were sitting around and thinking about new songs that he could sing. Then, in an ironic twist of fate, Montgomery took him over to Bobby Russell's office again, and the three were brainstorming until at last Goldsboro said "How about that ... song you played for me the other day?" Russell said, "You mean 'Honey'?" Goldsboro replied "Yes, I think so." So Russell played the song for Montgomery and Goldsboro, with another guitar, and it just "floored them both." Goldsboro was delighted. He asked Russell if he could try singing the song as a possibility of a new hit. However, Russell told him Bob Shane, from the group The Kingston Trio already had recorded the song. It was already getting a little bit of airplay on radio stations. Russell said to Bobby Goldsboro that it was in top 20 in the music charts down in Texas. Russell told Goldsboro that he could have a try at the song if Shane's record flopped. Nothing happened for Shane, so Bobby Goldsboro recorded "Honey," and it became a #1 hit in April 1968. (Summarized from liner notes by Steve Kolanjian from "The Best Of Bobby Goldsboro: Honey by Bobby Goldsboro," September 1991, issued by Capitol-EMI Records, available on CD).
Bobby Russell wrote several other songs, including Vicki Lawrence's The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia and the O.C. Smith's Little Green Apples. From June 1972 until November 1974 he was married to Lawrence (who played Mama Thelma Harper on the TV sitcom Mama's Family in the 1980s). He died of a heart attack on November 19, 1992, age 52 in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
Larry Henley later wrote the song The Wind Beneath My Wings. He still lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the song frequently appears on "worst songs of all-time" lists, and in April 2006, Todd Leopold of CNN named it the "Worst Song of All Time."[1] Critics point out that the singer was actually quite mean to his Honey, pointing to lyrics including: she was "kinda dumb and kinda smart"; she "Came runnin' in all excited, Slipped and almost hurt herself, And I laughed till I cried."; his obliviousness to her emotional state "...caught her crying needlessly"; and culminating in her possible suicide "One day while I was not at home, While she was there and all alone, The angels came". Nonetheless, it remains heavily played on the radio and has been covered many times. In the 1970s when British radio DJ Tony Blackburn was going through his divorce with his wife Tessa Wyatt, he regularly played "Honey" and would comment live on air about how much he missed his wife.[2] This was parodied in the "mockumentary" Smashie and Nicey: The End of an Era.
| Chart (1968) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 1 |
| Preceded by "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding |
Billboard Hot 100 number-one single April 13, 1968 (five weeks) |
Succeeded by "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & the Drells |
| Preceded by "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap |
Cash Box Top 100 singles April 1, 1968 |
Succeeded by "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & the Drells |
| Preceded by "Love Is Blue" by Paul Mauriat |
Billboard Easy Listening Singles number-one single by Bobby Goldsboro May 4, 1968 (2 weeks) |
Succeeded by "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro |
| Preceded by "I Wanna Live" by Glen Campbell |
Billboard Hot Country Singles number-one single May 25-June 8, 1968 |
Succeeded by "I Wanna Live" by Glen Campbell |
| Preceded by "Wild Weekend" by Bill Anderson |
RPM Country Tracks number-one single June 1-June 8, 1968 |