"Honey" is one of the all-time classic songs of patronization. The song opens inauspiciously with a verse that begs for an editor's red pen:
"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"
Ignoring the grammar error (the day was a twig?), these lines show just how ready the singer is to ridicule his beloved. He bullies her emotionally, but she really needn't worry; after all, isn't it one's duty to indulge children? That is her role in his life. Well, she dies ("the angels came," sung over a choir & strings), and our hero is bereft of his amusing toy. However, he takes consolation in his large store of memories of humiliating her in the past. Over the course of the song, we learn about her, but we learn even more about him -- and we quickly realize that he's a jerk whose inability to face the world was taken out on his wife. Now that she's gone, it's no wonder that he misses her; he no longer has an outlet for his inadequacy-fueled sadism.
-- SAPster Half