What does Honky Tonk mean?

Question

Just been listening to a country song, and the lyrics were of a Honky Tonk woman, now excuse me, but what she look like, or what she do for a living?

Answer 1

A Honky tonk is a type of country western bar/dance place. A honky tonk woman would refer to a female who frequents these places alone looking to be picked up. Usually overly painted and sexily dressed.

Answer 2

A honky tonk (also called a honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is a type of bar with musical entertainment common in the Southern and Southwestern United States. The term has also been applied to various styles of 20th-century American music.

Answer 3

Honky tonks were rough establishments, mostly in the Deep South and Southwest, that served alcoholic beverages to working class clientele. Honky tonks sometimes also offered dancing to piano players or small bands, and were sometimes also centres of prostitution. Katrina Hazzard-Gordon writes that the honky-tonk was "the first urban manifestation of the jook", and that "the name itself became synonymous with a style of music. Related to the classic blues in tonal structure, honky-tonk has a tempo that is slightly stepped up. It is rhythmically suited for many African-American dance.

"A Honky Tonk woman" therefore would be a female frequenter of such establishments and probably not as pure as the driven snow. Her occupation may well have been the oldest in the world but not necessarily so.

Answer 4

A Honky Tonk is an anything-goes Bar where people go to get drunk. It's where 'A boy named Sue' met his Pa.

Answer 5

Where I came from, a HONKY TONK was a beer bar that often had a local clientele from the area & the place generally had a house band that specialized in various forms of country western music or blues bands. There were pool tables in most of them. A honkey tonk woman was a white girl who would hang out & sleep with the guy who showed her that he had the right stuff! Generally all that took was a few pitchers of beer, the right compliments & a big fat line or a joint rolled & smoked in the parking lot or backroom of the establishment! It was a place for white folks...also referred to as HONKIES! No one with dark skin dared to pass through those doors if they knew what was good for them. That's just they way it WAS back then.



The honkey tonk woman often had ratted up sprayed high & rock hard hair, lots of make-up & perfume, spandex clothing & a yen for booze. She was needy & often ended up pregnant & the guys married her if said told them it was their baby she was carrying. She was looking for love in all the wrong places...but then, so were the guys that were sleeping with her!

Answer 6

A honky tonk (also called a honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is a type of bar with musical entertainment that is common in the Southwestern and Southern United States. The term has also been attached to various styles of 20th-century American music.

Answer 7

a honky tonk is a tavern in the south. up north we say bar, tavern, pub, down there they say honky tonk.a honky tonk wwoman is a girl who jhangs in the bar. or so i've been told.

Answer 8

Gretchen Wilson is your classic honky tonk woman.

Answer 9

An excellent question! I have a plausible theory that allows for people hearing things differently and words becoming corrupted. the phrase was first popular with broad summer areas such as beach resorts and amusement parks(Like Coney Island) and there wee and may still be a variety of borderline restaurant-night clubs on the boardwalk or midway area that are open in the front to facilitate cooling and pedestrian traffic access- man carnival buildigns are of this type-more substantial than a lean-to but still OPEN FRONT. My Guess Honky-Tonk may be be a corruption og OPEN FRONT Could also refer to a style of evening gown also called Empire or Strapless (worn by H-T performers by the way) and called an OPEN FRONT/ Listen to the song (sweet gypsy rose) nad read in Open Front-rather than honky tonk and it still makes sense (Tony Orlando Song) that"s my educated guess.

Answer 10

WELL.... LETS SEE NOW....



Hank Thompson recorded a tune called "HONKY TONK

GIRL".... it pretty much answers all your questions.



I, personally, never met a "honky tonk girl" that I didn't like.

They weren't "perfect".... and never claimed to be.

Answer 11

More commonly known as a bar-fly.

She's not a bad person, she hangs out in a honky-tonk.

Honky tonk is a slang term for a country-western bar.

Answer 12

"Honky tonk" generally refers to a country-folk lifestyle. I assume that it's a country woman, almost hillbilly like.

Answer 13

Usually, which too long for me. I think it depends on the guy as well as his face though. Certain guys may pull off long hair and other people can't.

Answer 14

long hair all the approach! i just posted a question regarding my hair also. i thought about getting it trimmed but everyone will be telling me no

Answer 15

As Willie said, she hangs out in bars. She's a party girl. Seems not to be too interested in permanent relationships, just a good time.

Answer 16

*winks* don't worry about what she looks like after 3 beers we all look pretty danged good.