"2HB" is short for "To Humphrey Bogart." In the lyrics, frontman Bryan Ferry employs the screen legend's famous line from Casablanca, "Here's looking at you, kid." Ferry told The Sun: "I was a big fan of cinema and found a lot of inspiration there, as you can see in the song '2HB.'"
Other songs on the Roxy Music album (their debut) inspired by classic movies include "Chance Meeting," which tips the hat to Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson's romantic 1940s film Brief Encounter, and "The Bob (Medley)," which references the 1968 war epic Battle of Britain.
The title of this song doubles as an unintentional pun on the graphite pencil scale. Speaking to Roxy Music biographer Michael Bracewell, Ferry recalled a conversation with British-American artist Mark Lancaster: "I told Mark that I was writing some songs, and he said, 'What are they called?' So I said that there was one called '2HB,' and he said, 'Oh that's so great – writing a song about a pencil.' Which is a very pop-art concept really – except that I was writing a song about Humphrey Bogart."
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