Bobby Russell, songwriter of genius
As a man who has already publicly admitted to liking The Carpenters, the BeeGees, and other late-60s/early-70s WKBW staples, I might as well make my humiliation complete by saluting the works of Bobby Russell. Russell wrote “God Didn’t Make Little Green Apples,” “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” and “Honey,” the big Bobby Goldsboro hit from 1968.
I pause here so you can groan.
Let’s start with an appraisal of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” a number-one hit for Vicki Lawrence, Russell’s wife at the time. Frankly, I’ve always found the narrator’s version of the story to be somewhat untrustworthy. She complains that her brother Seth was hung for a murder he didn’t commit after a “make-believe trial,” because the judge said “supper’s waiting at home and I gotta get to it.” Please. We’ve already heard that Seth went to the house intending to commit murder; that Seth would have if his sister hadn’t beaten him to the punch; that his sister went on to commit a second murder that night; and that he carried “the only thing poppa had left him and that was a gun.” Clearly the entire family is homicidal. Judge Judy would have ruled no differently.
Moving on to “Little Green Apples,” 1968’s Grammy Award-winning Song of the Year. In it, Russell writes that if his wife’s many kindnesses don’t add up to loving him, well, “then God didn’t make little green apples.” Maybe it’s just me, but what’s so special about little green apples? Ever eat one? You’d think you’d been poisoned.
Now, I veer into dangerous territory: “Honey,” a number one hit for five weeks.
Today “Honey” regularly claims the top spot for worst song of all time, but I like it. All right, I love it. I can’t even scan the lyrics without choking up, and I know it’s the corniest song of all time. I watch Bobby Goldsboro sing it on YouTube, and I want to laugh at him and his 1960’s sincerity and Bobby Sherman hair, but I end up wiping away tears and hoping my wife doesn’t come in and see me. Russell wasn’t playing games. He wasn’t tugging on the heartstrings so much as beating them with a two-by-four.
“One day while I was not at home,
while she was there and all alone,
the angels came…”
For some of you, driving is probably difficult right now, as your eyes are, like mine, swimming in tears. To you, I apologize. As for the rest of you bitter, hard-hearted “Honey”-haters, maybe listening to Jim Nabors’ version can change your mind.
A friend of mine says “Honey” plus Jim Nabors equals The Perfect Storm.
I haven’t played him the cover by Lawrence Welk yet.
