Wild About Honey

Like all right-thinking people I follow Alwyn Turner's online series Revive 45 on the Lion and Unicorn website, and I urge the more malleable reader to go forth and do likewise. Once a month Mr Turner casts his eye over the top ten from forty five years ago, and the resulting mix of insight, original research (he's interviewed quite a few of the artists) and unashamed enthusiasm for hits long condemned as "uncool" by others has frequently been an ear-opener for me - and he knows how to turn the odd pleasing phrase too. The most recent post considers the charts from April 1975, including Bobby Goldsboro's oft-disparaged Honey (above).

Reading the piece has prompted me to listen to Goldsboro's record again and to look at the lyrics more closely. But before I get onto a more detailed examination I need to bring a certain hangup of mine into the open. The notional "coolnesss" or otherwise of certain records has often proven a hurdle to my fullhearted enjoyment of them, so I rather envy Mr Turner's lack of shame in that respect. I suppose it all goes back to my childhood ... childhood ... childhood ...

Alright, enough with the reverb already, but it's true. Some readers may recall a post in which I described how, in the seventies, my brothers and I would cheer or boo as artists' images flashed up during the chart rundowns on Top of the Pops. Such snap judgements were easy to make then: fear of being mocked by one's siblings concentrates the mind wonderfully.

To give a particular example: I don't think it was much of a hit, but I recall seeing a group called Autumn perform a song called My Little Girl on TOTP, and really enjoying it ... until my eldest brother gave an incredulous laugh, declaring it to be "terrible". I knew better than to offer any argument. Years later, when I bought a secondhand copy of the single, I could feel shame and rebellion warring within me as I handed over a grubby pound note.





In fairness to my brother, he may have been responding to the banality of the lyrics, which didn't mention revolution even once. Nevertheless, I think I knew then, as I definitely know now, that harmonies are the thing, and witless joy is a whole lot better than none at all. Which is very much the creed of Revive 45.

The main subject of my post about cheering and booing was the Floaters' 70s hit Float On, one of many records of that time which I've belatedly reassessed. This has been prompted partly by nostalgia but also by the extra musical knowledge I've acquired over the years, which has made it easier to see a particular single in context and give oneself permission to like it, heedless of real or imagined fraternal judgments.

I now see that Float On is not unrelated to doo wop: at once ridiculous and touching. And although the ubiquity of Shirley and Company's Shame, Shame, Shame, also mentioned in that post, made it hard to bear for a few years, now it's a winner on two levels: an indelible memory of a friend as well as a prime example of the excitement and joy which can be generated when two gospel-inflected voices engage in friendly battle.

Alwyn Turner's series will likewise encourage you to pick up and reexamine records from that earlier age - always assuming, of course, that you are old enough to remember them. If not - well, I suppose that'll be a different sort of education, though no less worthwhile. Either way, give him a go is my advice.

I can't say for certain what I felt about Honey when I first heard it. I imagine that there would have been at least the outward show of resistance, for the reasons outlined above. But at some point, lost to history, I must have softened, because in September 2012 I was emboldened to record the following:

A few days ago I was having a conversation with a friend about stories in song, prompted by hearing Honey, the song associated with (but not written by) Bobby Goldsboro, on the mixtape of the restaurant where we were dining. Yes, it was corny and sentimental but my point - not really grasped by my companion - was that details had lodged in my brain ever since childhood, like Honey 'sittin' there and cryin' over some sad and silly late, late show'.

This is what Alwyn Turner has to say about the song:

I like it a great deal. This is death-disc schmaltz at its very best. And I love some of the lyrics: 'She was always young at heart, kinda dumb and kinda smart.' Try, in your mind’s ear, to hear Joey Ramone singing that, and you’ll see how splendid it is.

Which observation set me to thinking about the rest of the lyrics ... and I quickly began to see that this is indeed a fine piece of work, on a par with other stories-in-song such as Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp and Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town. Here, then, for all those who remain intimidated by real or imaginary viewing or dining companions, are my thoughts about Honey. Take them as your own if you wish; whisper them to yourself in some place of safety, if such be available.

I would have first heard Honey on Top of the Pops in 1968. Was it one more boring song to be endured, like those of Val Doonican and other balladeers, before a good one came on? In 1975, the year of the chart being surveyed, it was a rerelease. Could that have been the point at which phrases from the song first lodged in my brain? I can't say - though as with the Autumn single I would have known it wasn't an enthusiasm to be bruited about.

But before the lyrics, let's examine the performance. The song was not written by Bobby Goldsboro but I absolutely believe in the restraint of his vocal: plaintive but controlled. It's not difficult to imagine Gene Pitney tackling such a song - the result, I suspect, would not have been dissimilar. Except that, being Gene Pitney, he might have given freer rein to his emotions at some point. As in the more extreme case of Robin Gibb, there is an inbuilt quaver in his voice which I fear would have tipped the balance.

Histrionics, or the hint of them, would be superfluous - at least, assuming you're backed by an arrangement similar to that on Goldsboro's record. It's pretty heavy on the strings and heavenly choir, so he doesn't need to overstate his case: we get that these recollections are poignant, and all he has to do to go through them with apparent lightness. The bereaved husband is, or so I imagine, like the Ancient Mariner, stopping one of three, compelled to tell his story yet again, while knowing it must be done  briskly in order to keep that neighbour or passing stranger ("Friend") from politely making his excuses and haring off.

The backing's doing a lot of the work, then. Could it be argued that it's too heavy, too syrupy, even so? Possibly. But if you accept it as the subtext - the wallowing in pain which ordinary intercourse won't permit - then it kind of works anyway ... alright, even if it could have been dialled down a bit. We'll return to this point a little later, but first let's hear the song:





Just as it's difficult for me to find fault with Goldsboro's vocal performance, the lyrics seem more or less perfect: a story told with considerable economy through judicious choice of detail.  And even if I can't remember how the song first struck me I can certainly testify that quite a few of those lines have stayed with me down the decades. And today, when I examine them more closely, I am struck by the artfulness of the narrative. Let's go through a few of them.

At the beginning the tree is the device for hooking the listener in - not just us, the record's audience, but the passing stranger or neighbour:

See the tree how big it's grown
But Friend, it hasn't been too long, it wasn't big

Then follows the detail that after she slipped while trying to protect said tree from the ravages of winter her husband "laughed till I cried". This is craftily done, undercutting the sentimentality while preparing us for later tears.

At first her weeping is presented as an endearing weakness:

... crying
Over some sad and silly late, late show

But mark the speed with which some of kind of terminal illness is hinted at, followed by the immediate transition to her death:

I came home unexpectedly
Found her crying needlessly in the middle of the day
And it was in the early spring,
When flowers bloom and robins sing, she went away

Musically, Honey has the feel of a chanson, though without the Gallic shrug in the singing: fatalistic this guy ain't. But the verses are conversational, half-spoken; it's only the choruses, in which he directly addresses his departed love, which really aspire to singing.

There's no denying, however, that the chorus does seem mawkish:

And Honey, I miss you
And I'm being good
And I'd love to be with you
If only I could

"Being good" in this context can only mean he's not sleeping with other women and has not sought out someone to replace her. A similar phrase is used in the middle eight of the Beatles' Wait, written, I presume, by Paul McCartney, who sings that section:

I feel as though
You ought to know
That I've been good
As good as I can be
And if you do
I'll trust in you
And know that you
Will wait for me

Not the Beatles' finest lyrical moment: Macca sounds like a boy scout promising to do his duty - and not in the good Bessie Smith way.

But while the songs share the same phrase, more or less, there's an important difference between the two. In Honey, the childishness of "I'm being good" is counterbalanced by something more vividly described, more - well, more adult:

And now my life's an empty stage
Where Honey lived and honey played and love grew up

It reminds us that, for all the charming or funny details about his late wife's kookiness ("kinda dumb and kinda smart") this is a song about a grief which is still raw: the timescale is vague but we know that the Christmas gift of the puppy was only two years earlier. Note, too, that phrase "love grew up" as opposed simply to "grew". Upwards like the tree which is the initial focus of the song, or with some suggestion, perhaps, of growing up as in coming to terms with the knowledge that love encompasses loss?

Either way, those lines are immediately followed by more tears before we are neatly led back to the start (via the association of "flower bed" and "trees") as our modern Mariner starts to tell his tale to the next available audience or is compelled to repeat it to the present listener:

A small cloud passes overhead
And cries down on the flower bed that Honey loved
Yes, see the tree how big it's grown
But friend it hasn't been too long, it wasn't big ...

Actually, the latter may be too extreme a supposition. Perhaps it's simply that he is repeating the odd detail, anxious not to miss anything which might impress upon his listener the importance of the tale. Whichever, the cyclical form feels right: there is no magic solution to his problem.

Looking on youtube for recent performances of the song, I saw a clip of Bobby Goldsboro performing at Ray Stevens' CabaRay showroom in Nashville, I believe in 2018. He was in excellent voice fifty years on, but I got a jolt when he ended with the image of the cloud crying on the flower bed. It did work musically, and for all I know that's how he regularly sings it now, but it felt like many more years than two had passed since the angels came.

Which, in a sense, is true, I suppose. Some singers alter the keys when they perform their old  hits, if age means there are notes they can no longer reach; is it fanciful to think that Goldsboro might be making a corresponding adjustment to the narrator's sensibility now that he is singing this song fifty years on? Is it easier to contemplate a full stop now, both for himself and the audiences who have kept pace with him?

Which reminds me of another example of Bobby Russell's skilful balancing act. The fanciful phrase "the angels came" is redolent of some sentimental Victorian ballad but note the bald statement which follows:

I wake up nights and call her name

Honey has been covered by quite a few people. There is an earlier version of the song by Peter Lotis, who gives it plenty of vibrato and takes it at a brisker pace; the result is less affecting. More interesting is the first recording, by Bob Shane. This was produced by the composer so presumably reflects his intentions. Shane's vocal has a suggestion of Rod McKuen and is intimate, understated; it's not difficult to imagine Goldsboro patterning his own approach on this.

But oh, the arrangement - unless it's just the mix. At times it verges on being one of those comedy records where the singer is gradually drowned out and has to bellow to be heard. It's as though Russell was determined that the listener would treat this as a rock song instead of the country-style ballad it clearly is. I don't know whether Russell had any direct involvement with Goldsboro's recording but even if the arrangement on the latter could have been starker - what would George Martin, say, have done? - it still seems far better suited to the song than Russell's own conception. Other versions can be found online, includng an agreeable enough rendition by Dean Martin. But Goldsboro's is the one.





There are also some female renditions of the song, with a lyric so altered that it's really more of an answer record. Most of the events happen to the wife, but it's the husband who is "kinda dumb and kinda smart". She's still the one who dies, though, so " I'd love to be with you if only I could" carries a different sort of charge. The conclusion doesn't have the power of the male version, though it works after a fashion:

One day while you were not at home
While I was there and all alone
The angels came
Guess you thought it strange of me
To leave the way I did that day,
It was a shame

But now your life is just begun
And even though you miss me, Hon,
You must go on

And when the small cloud passes overhead
And cries down on the flower bed,
You'll know you're not alone

Here's Patti Page's recording:





But it doesn't seem right to end there. Let us turn back to Bobby Goldsboro and Honey in its better-known form on that CabaRay appearance.





Pace Alwyn Turner, I'd say that Honey both is and isn't a death disc, and perhaps that's ultimately the reason for its longevity. Bobby Goldsboro's performance is not overheated in the manner of some other examples of the genre. The attitude which led to that restraint is suggested in a 1968 interview quoted on the songfacts website:

I think Honey is a very emotional song, but it's not like what I call a sick song, a death song. Actually what it is, very simply, is just a guy remembering little things that happened while his wife was alive and to me that's not sick at all.

Links:

Bobby Goldsboro's official website, with music and paintings for sale, can be found here.

Alwyn Turner's monthly Revive 45 posts can be found on the Lion and Unicorn website here. The post with the April 1975 chart, including Honey, is here. 

Or why not go back to the very first Revive 45 post, here, in which he makes a more convincing case than you might imagine at first glance for 5th January 1974 being "one of the best top tens in British chart history", even though it includes Marie Osmond and the New Seekers among its number.

The songfacts page on Honey has lots of freewheeling interpretations of the lyrics submitted by readers; it can be found here.

My dining disagreement about the merits of Honey was extracted from a piece I wrote about Hal David, here.

"Floating Boaters or But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Hooray' or 'Boo'?" can be found here.

A post about first hearing The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp can be found here.

And finally, a belated acknowledgement of the greatness of Shirley and Company's disco classic Shame, Shame, Shame can be found here.

New book about doo wop now available (Could This Be Magic? by Spencer Leigh)

Update: Spencer Leigh's Could This Be Magic? has now been been published as an e-book and is available worldwide from UK amazon here and US amazon here.

 This is to let readers know that the DJ and author Spencer Leigh has written a book about doo wop which will be published this Friday, 17th April.

The current crisis means that it will be issued initially in e-book form, although it's hoped a hard copy will be available later. I recently read an advance copy of the book, which is entitled Could It Be Magic?, and chatted to Spencer Leigh about it.

The book had been a passion project of his for some years but it had proven hard to get publishers interested. Studies of individual artists are arranged A-Z in the music section of bookshops and easy for prospective buyer to find; miscellaneous music books tend to be lumped together so are a less enticing proposition when it comes to being commissioned.

When the bookshops open again, as one day they must, music fans ought to seek this book out, and holler if they can't find it. Could It Be Magic? (named after a song by the Dubs) works on two levels. It's an engaging introduction to the genre for those who are "doo wop-curious" - wishing to find out more about the music but with no idea where to begin when faced with the bewildering array of recordings only a few clicks away. Such readers will find that Spencer wears his considerable knowledge lightly, and his enthusiasm will sweep them along.

But there's also a great deal here for those who know their Penguins from their Paragons. Spencer has been presenting a programme called On the Beat on BBC Radio Merseyside for 35 years, over which time he has conducted numerous interviews with singers and musicians, and this treasure trove of firsthand reminiscence has been freely drawn upon for the book. Little Anthony, for example, recalls first hearing the Flamingos' Golden Teardrops "and it was like they were from another planet". And others may have outlined kiddie doo wop star Frankie Lymon's rise and fall but who else has spoken to skiffler Chas McDevitt, who toured Britain with Frankie? There is a freshness and vividness about much of the detail here.

Spencer is not averse to slipping in the odd joke but is clearly writing with passion. He is especially proud of a chapter which examines doo wop in Britain, a subject which hasn't been covered elsewhere. "In those golden years from 1955 to 1962," he writes, "very few British acts could sing it with conviction, but there are striking exceptions and even more from later years." One notable example is Emile Ford and the Checkmates, "the UK’s first successful multi-racial band", whose revival of the old song What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me for? actually includes the words "doo wop" in the opening ("Doo-wop be dooby dooby ..."), and Spencer traces the two American singles which inspired the arrangement on the record.

The book is arranged in three sections, with that discussion of British doo wop at the end. First of all, however, there's an account of doo wop from its earliest origins right up to the present day. Spencer doesn't stop at the convenient cut-off point of 1963 and the Beatles but instead looks at how the style was carried on into Motown, influenced the Fabs themselves, and remains part of music today. This
is followed by four in-depth studies of influential performers: Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Dion and the Belmonts, the Coasters and the Prisonaires. More knowledgeable readers may raise an eyebrow at the last named as the Prisonaires are more associated with an older style of singing - but, as Spencer says, "Their story is so damned amazing and says so much about life for the American black population in the South, I just had to tell it."

Spencer is very clear in the book's introduction about what the book isn't. It's not a discography or a history of all the groups. Instead "it is a history of doo-wop told roughly chronologically so we can
follow the music as it progresses and see its highs and lows."

It's also good to see that he gives due weight to the importance of standards in doo wop groups' repertoire. An earlier book referred to doo wop as "The Forgotten Third of Rock'n'Roll", the other two components being country and blues. Spencer disagrees: "It is more like the forgotten quarter as the popular music of the day also played its part. After all, Elvis Presley's favourite singers were Dean Martin and Mario Lanza. Note too how the pre-war standards were revived by many of the new acts, especially the doo-woppers."

When a reviewer mentions that he read a book in a single sitting I am never sure whether that's an unqualified endorsement (couldn't tear myself away) or whether there might be an implied criticism (too short). Could It Be Magic? is a substantial book, so I don't think the average reader is likely to finish it in a single sitting. But if you're anything like me, you won't want to. I kept stopping in order to listen to forgotten or unfamiliar records online, and I know I'll return to the book later for more. As in his radio programme Spencer Leigh is an enthusiast who is able to transmit that enthusiasm, and a safe pair of hands.

At the end of our conversation I asked Spencer why he thought that doo wop has stayed around for so long. His answer was simple. It's direct music, so it hasn't dated in the way that some other genres have. And it's not reliant on sophisticated recording techniques, as evidenced by an all-time classic of the genre, the Five Satins' In the Still of the Nite, recorded in a chuch basement in Connecticut: "The drums came out as a dull thud and the sound was muffled and distorted but the result was doo-wop heaven." Now that really is magic.


Spencer Leigh's e-book Could This Be Magic? can be bought from UK amazon here and US amazon here. 

The cost is $5 for US readers and £4.02 in the UK.