The song depicts young men, sitting alone in bars, "drinking up the night and trying not to drown.
[1] Music reviewer Terrance Blacker likens the title to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s collection of short stories All the Sad Young Men.
[2] As a jazz standard (sometimes called Ballad of the Sad Young Men), the song has been performed and recorded by several artists, including Anita O’Day on her album All the Sad Young Men (1962), Shirley Bassey And I Love You So (1972) and Roberta Flack First Take (1969).
[4] When singer Roberta Flack was a music teacher in Washington D.C., she performed "five nights a week, three sets per night" at a local gay friendly bar and restaurant called Mr. Henry’s on Capitol Hill: a cultural "hot spot" for jazz musicians in the D.C.
[1] According to author Eric Weisbard in his book Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music, [even though] "the lyric never openly refers to the term 'gay', in the context of the homosexual concept, its references are unmistakable... the song's last line confirms its sympathetic tone... ‘guide them home again'.