Tissues at the ready it's...
BOBBY GOLDSBORO
(United Artists 1968)
I know absolutely nothing about Bobby Goldsboro - so this pre-amble is going to be a little short and uninteresting. Didn't even know what he looked like until I found the YouTube link for the song - turns out he looks like a bit of a cut-price Neil Diamond. I know that this record was pretty big over here in the 60's and I'm assuming it was equally so in the states. Don't know if he kept managing to have hit records in the USA - but this one was it in the UK. He seems to be melding light country with pop and melancholy. It is entirely possible that I bought this record mistaking it for Bobbie Gentry's 'Ode To Billy Joe' -a similar genre of music, and thematically in the same ballpark as this platter (and a much better record, to boot!).
**SPOILER ALERT** - In the song Honey, Honey dies. There's no easy way to break that to you - but you should have worked that out from the opening few seconds of the song. The tune and the orchestration is sweetly maudlin, Goldsboro is using his best sad voice, and the lyrics only refer to Honey in the past tense. The record has one purpose, and one purpose only; that is to make the listener cry. If you're not crying at the end of this record then you are not the target audience, the target audience for this is the recently bereaved, or those who've lost loved ones prematurely and are still grieving, or at least need to have a good old wallow in that grief. Any one person's reaction to this song will differ dependant upon their emotional state at time of listening, if you're feeling chipper and in a positive frame of mind, then this is, without a doubt, a load of sentimental old tosh, that couldn't finish quick enough. However if you're feeling a little bit on the downside emotionally, then this song could be a sucker punch to the heart, and have you sobbing your eyes out by the end of it. It's a simple tale of a young couple in love, and them doing all the young coupley things that people do, then towards the end of the second verse the narrator comes home early and Honey is crying alone in the middle of the day, and the next line it's Autumn ('cos Autumn is sad), and Honey has euphemistically gone away. I believe that were supposed to think that it's some non-specific terminal disease (probably cancer), however if you're not in a sad state of mind you can go for the alternative explanation - the marriage is dull and miserable for her, and he's such a complete wet blanket that she's upped and left him, and he's pretending she's dead, so he doesn't look a fool in front of other people. There's another possible explanation afforded to us in third verse, the narrator says that the Angels came and took Honey while he was out - maybe she was kidnapped by gang of Hell's Angels high on PCP. I don't know - coming up with alternative explanations is the best way to get through this song without giving way to the emotional pressure it's forcing on you.
Right I'm going to flip this record over and look for something a bit sunnier on the B-Side. The music is slightly breezier, but then he starts singing about a child, the titular Danny, and lovely memories of him. It is at this point I stop the record for a breather. This still feels like were building up to another load of sentimentality. At this point it could just be reminiscing on the childhood of a now grown-up offspring, which is enough to get some people going, but I can see two other options on the horizon, either the partner has left and taken Danny, and the narrator can no longer see him, or Danny's dead. To be honest I don't know which one I'd put my money on at the moment. I must gird my loins, dear reader, and start up the record again and find out, so you don't have to. OK - not as bad as I feared - it's just a proud parent singing about all the cute things that their toddler does - one maudlin moment when the narrator wonders about missing all these things when Danny grows up, but it could have been worse. The real issue is that I'm not interested in what someone else's toddler gets up to, I've had a couple of my own, and as any parent knows there's no cuter toddler than yours.
In summation, I realise that I didn't talk much about the music on either of these tracks, and that's because it's almost irrelevant - on both tracks it's soft, swaying and in there just as a background to the emotional nonsense that's being sung on top. I probably won't ever deliberately listen to either of these songs again.
Next time some sixties stalwarts try pushing their luck in the seventies...
