Bobby Goldsboro: Honey Meaning

Song Released: 1968

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Honey Lyrics

See the tree, how big it's grown
But friend it hasn't been too long
It wasn't big
I laughed at her and she got mad
The first day that she planted it, was just a twig
Then the first snow came
And she ran out to brush the snow away
So it...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Apr 24th 2020 report

   The people on here who are saying the husband was abusive have some serious mental issues themselves. He teased her a little, so what?
   And lots of women cry at movies. Again, so what? She wrecked the car and he acted mad, but admitted that he wasn't really mad. He loved her too much to give her a hard time about it. He teased her about the tree she loved so much too. It was all PLAYFUL flirting, people! Do you people under 30 not do that anymore?! Sheesh! I'm so glad I don't date in the era of "social justice." What a bunch of freaks!
2. anonymous

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   Oct 23rd report

   The young lady committed suicide. How could she be that ill and her husband not know. He was away from her when she died. Don't you think he would be by her side if she was dying of a terminal disease?
3. anonymous

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   Jun 24th report

   HAve any of you ever had a loved one with a serious or terminal illness? Because those who think it was depression and suicide don’t appear to have ever lost a loved one to long term illness.
   
   My father who just passed away, fought a terminal illness for over two years, and would occasionally just sit there an cry over the diagnosis and knowing his life was coming to an end. And the limitations on what he could do, or how he needed me to help him.
   He was in hospice at home and I sat with him at the end but I got up to eat something and it was like a shadow passed over me. I stopped eating and went into his room but he was gone…. I have spent the last three months living this song. Looking around the house we built together and recalling funny stories or sad stories. And wishing I could be with him…
   I had a doctor tell me he suspected I had cancer (and one of the nasty types). And during the run of tests and waiting for results about 10 to 14 days i kept it to myself, but I cried at the thought more then once….
   I have almost lost relatives to cancer, i have lost relatives to cancer, I have lost a very very young friend to cancer when I was in high school. A young daughter of neighbors passed away to long term illness in her early 20s,
   And this song does a remarkable job of invoking the emotions that you encounter with this type of situation.
   She was crying “needlessly” because HE didn’t know why she was crying. Perhaps she just was diagnosed or she was just crying because she knew she was dying or perhaps she was in pain. But it was a terminal illness that took her.
   I walked into my parents home one day to find my mother hugging the neighbor as the three of them (my dad my mother and my neighbor) all cries. The neighbor had cancer and had just told them.
4. anonymous

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   Apr 5th 2021 report

   I believe also it's about depression and suicide. Something not discussed then. Depression is hidden and misunderstood. Some just hide it like a clown face. Hence "found her crying in the middle of the day". She hid her depression from him and one day while he was away she killed herself because she couldn't live with it anymore. It didn't mean it was his fault. It had no treatment then. In the end he just remembering her and how he loved and misses her.
5. anonymous

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   Dec 2nd 2020 report

   It's very sad to me that this generation thinks that tears and sadness area an automatic sign of suicide or depression. These emotions are a part of human nature. The young couple were deeply in love. The wife found out she was terminally ill and didn't have the heart to tell her husband. Instead she made many beautiful memories during the short time they had together. He came home and found that she had passed away. This is the BEST love song EVER, and no one but no one can sing it like Bobby Goldsboro. I remember this from my childhood and it always makes me cry.
6. anonymous

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   Mar 19th 2020 report

   My best guess was that it was about a woman who was bipolar and was pregnant and died at home alone from a miscarriage. Her behavior suggests that.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
7. anonymous

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   Jan 18th 2020 report

   I think the song is about a husband and wife and that the wife is a loving woman and that she does find out that she has a terminal illness and doesn’t have the heart or the way to tell him, and that she more than likely died in her sleep since it was terminal and nothing could be done and it came suddenly. That the husband looks at everything with gentleness and cries for her because she saw the beauty in everything
8. anonymous

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   Oct 2nd 2019 report

   I agree it is most likely about depression and suicide. If she were terminally ill, he would not have left her home alone to die. She would have been in hospital or with family. Most likely in hospital, as back then few if any were allowed to go home to die, homecare with self-administered pain meds was unheard of and was probably in fact illegal in many states. Her behavior sounds to me to include bipolar symptoms-she's all silly and giggly, but cries easily. He also seems to have been caught by surprise at her death.
9. anonymous

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   Aug 27th 2019 report

   I think the story is about depression and suicide. Things that nobody talked about in the 60s. I think the songwriter was trying to shed light on a difficult subject at the time.
10. anonymous

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    Jul 11th 2019 report

    His wife got the news that she was dying and he came home unexpectedly to find her crying. She died in the spring while she was home alone.
11. anonymous

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    Mar 20th 2019 report

    I believe he is fondly remembering little things in their life that he didn't think were so important until his beloved died... She found out she was sick n didn't want her husband to know so died quietly while he was at work... Very HEARTBREAKING song especially w/ the BEAUTIFUL orchestra!!!
12. anonymous

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    Jan 30th 2019 report

    I think she is very depressed & commits suicide.
13. anonymous

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    Oct 12th 2018 report

    I feel like the wife committed Suicide. She seemed very sad and emotional. The husband is remembering the things she used to do, and realized it was too late.
14. anonymous

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    Sep 6th 2018 report

    My interpretation is of a couple hopelessly in love. One day the guy comes home to his love crying. She has found out that she is dying. Later in the year she does die, and he is grief-stricken forever more, however he has the fondest of memories of her to last him for the rest of HIS life.
15. anonymous

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    Apr 30th 2018 report

    I REMBER this song on my way to Vietnam it was always on our radios
16. anonymous

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    Mar 25th 2018 report

    Over the years, when I have heard this song,I have interpreted it differently.
    
    When I was a child in the late 60s, I thought it was about a wife who left her husband because he mistreated her.
    
    As a young adult, in the early/mid 80s, I thought it was about a man that loses his wife to illness and is suffering so because of it.
    
    A listened again to the song recently, and now in my mid to late fifties, I view it differently. First of all, the narrator is a jerk to his wife. His behavior appears to be getting to her (“crying needlessly in the middle of the day”). Finally, she likely commits suicide, although that’s not clear. He’s remorseful and should be. Although the song was written in the 60s and ‘acceptable’ marital behavior was different, he was still acting like a jerk and knows it. Now the narrator is clearly suffering and knows he was likely a contributory cause in her death.

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