What does "Honey are you straight or are you blind?&quo

Sour Milk Cow · Post by **Sour Milk Cow** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:39 pm

Can anyone explain this song to me? Is it about a guy dating a lesbian? Or what? Maybe I'm just dumb. I can never tell if Costello is changing points-of-view within a song, and there is always so much detail left out, I can never follow the plots of his songs.

normabuel · Post by **normabuel** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:31 pm

I once read an interview with EC explaining that it was about a dream he had.

firebetty · Post by **firebetty** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:35 pm

doesn't he always say that?

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:04 pm

This song came to him in a dream ,but it seems like it's about homosexuals and ignorance to me.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:46 pm

I always thought it was about a guy who sees an ex-girlfriend who's sexuality he is unsure and wonders whether the unattractive woman he sees he with is a platonic friend or a lover. (I.e., if she's a platonic friend, she's straight. If she's a lover then she's "blind.") But then that's just the chorus -- I'm too lazy to look up the lyrics right now, and the answer came to me in a dream.

Jackson Monk · Post by **Jackson Monk** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 4:25 pm

i like that Bobster...fits in well with these lines:

She's coming in between us you know that she is
I'm not holding on to her but one of us is
My hands are in my pocket, my face is in a book
She could walk 'round naked and I wouldn't sneak a look

She walked in and your eyes flew out the door
You squeezed my hand 'til the circulation ceases
She's just a doll like so many more
She's the kind of doll that you'd like to pull to peices

certainly, I always thought it was more about a man who is getting a hard time from his woman, because she's jealous of his ex (who turns out to be gay).

wardo68 · Post by **wardo68** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 9:10 am

Interesting interpretations, all, but I'm still not convinced of the 'homosexual' angle. I saw the idea of 'straight' as more 'straight-laced', i.e. not cool, behind the times, etc. (kinda like how John Lennon sings "You live with straights who tell you you is king" in "How Do You Sleep?")

That said, I still don't know what the song's about. Tho' "She could walk by naked and I wouldn't sneak a look" makes me laugh every time.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 5:02 am

I agree with Wardo with the gay thing, I think that's a too literal (?) interpretation of 'straight'....

IMHO it's about a girl who's jealous of her boyfriend's ex, and the guy is pleading innocence...the chorus is asking her to be with him without being jealous! 'Are you blind' meaning 'why can't you see I only have eyes for you?'...

e.g.

She's coming in between us you know that she is
I'm not holding on to her but one of us is

She could walk 'round naked and I wouldn't sneak a look

She walked in and your eyes flew out the door
You squeezed my hand 'til the circulation ceases

She's just a doll like so many more
She's the kind of doll that you'd like to pull to pieces

firebetty · Post by **firebetty** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:09 pm

whar, no one say homosexual anymore.

straight as in "all the boys are straightlaced"
and blind as in drunk.

that is just what i hear inbetween the bump and grinds.

costellopunk · Post by **costellopunk** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 4:46 pm

i always thought he saw the future of my life in this song and new that my wife would turn into a lesbian. i always got the feeling that two people in a relationship were fighting over some really hot girl, which didn't happen in my life...that girls is fugly.