Moby first heard "Sometimes" on a box set collection of folk music compiled by Alan Lomax, and subsequently composed "Honey" around vocal samples from the Jones song.

Moby composed "Honey" for his fifth studio album Play (1999) after listening to Sounds of the South, a 1993 box set of folk music recordings compiled by field collector Alan Lomax.

[8] The vocal samples on "Honey" are juxtaposed with what AllMusic critic John Bush describes as a "breakbeat techno" musical backing.

[9] The song features a piano-driven beat and additional instrumentation performed by Moby himself, including original slide guitar parts.

[13] Numerous remixes of the song were produced for its single release by different artists, including Aphrodite, WestBam, Faithless members Rollo Armstrong and Sister Bliss, and Moby himself.

[14] Moby recalled that European radio stations were hesitant to play "Honey" because "they said it was an instrumental dance track", a categorization that he disputed: "I listen to it and all I hear is singing.

[28] In his 2002 book I Hear America Singing: An Introduction to Popular Music, David Kastin noted that "Honey" was often singled out in reviews of Play for special praise.

[29] Jim Sullivan of The Boston Globe cited "Honey" as a highlight of Play,[30] while Gene Stout of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer deemed it "one of the album's most riveting tracks.

[34] Writing for The Village Voice, Frank Owen called it "a mesmerizing floor-filler, arousing memories of Hamilton Bohannon's hypnotic '70s metronome funk.

"[35] MTV reviewer Alexandra Marshall applauded Moby for avoiding "cloying pity" in his sampling of older recordings, and "not trying cutely to juxtapose a 'naïve' form with a sophisticated one".