Almanac Music: ‘Have a Cigar’ – Songs Involving Smoking
La fille à la cigarette, by Anders Zorn, oil on canvas, 1892. Permanent collection unknown. [Wikimedia Commons.]
Almanac Music: ‘Have a Cigar’- Songs Involving Smoking
Hi, Almanackers! This piece in my long-running series about key popular song themes concerns songs which involve smoking – cigarettes, cigars, pipes, whatever…
So, dear readers, please put your ‘songs involving smoking’ in the ‘Comments’ section. Below, as usual, are some examples from me to get the ball rolling.
‘King of the Road’, written and performed by Roger Miller (1965)
‘I ain’t got no cigarettes’
‘A Day in the Life’, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles (1967)
‘Found my way upstairs and had a smoke’
‘I’m So Tired’, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by the Beatles (1968)
‘I’ll have another cigarette / And curse Sir Walter Raleigh / He was such a stupid git’
‘Smokin’ in the Boys Room’, written by Cub Koda and Michael Lutz, performed by Brownsville Station (1973)
‘Everybody knows that smokin’ ain’t allowed at school’
‘The Joker’, written by Eddie Curtis, Ahmet Ertegun and Steve Miller, performed by Steve Miller Band (1973)
‘I’m a joker /I’m a smoker / I’m a midnight toker’
‘Have a Cigar’, written by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd (1975)
‘Come in here, dear boy have a cigar’
‘Legalize It’, written and performed by Peter Tosh (1975)
‘Legalize it’
‘Only Women Bleed’, written by Alice Cooper and Dick Wagner, performed by Alice Cooper (1975)
‘He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all’
‘Castle on the Hill’, written by Benny Blanco and Ed Sheerin, performed by Ed Sheerin (2017)
‘Fifteen years old and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes’
………………………………………………..
Now, dear readers / listeners – it’s over to you. Your responses to this topic are warmly welcomed. In the ‘Comments’ section, please add your own choice of a song (or songs) involving smoking, along with any other relevant material you wish to include.
[Note: as usual, Wikipedia has been a good general reference for this piece, particularly in terms of checking dates and other details.]
Read more from Kevin Densley HERE
Kevin Densley’s latest poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws…I’m Feeling Too Indolent, is available HERE
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His fifth book-length poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws ... I'm Feeling Too Indolent, was published in late 2023 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, which was published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
First song that comes to mind KD is a Dylan song.
‘Desolation Row’
Thanks, Col – what a fine song to begin our new theme with!
Still In Love With You by Dragon. They had some nice moments in the 70’s, didn’t they?
Stuck downtown in a local bar
Drinking rum and smoking tar
People there, well, they put you down
Ooh, babe, you’ve been dancing ’round
Getting in early before Snoop Dogg takes over!
Thanks, Mickey, for ‘Still in Love with You’ – yes, another ripper song. And fine to see you come in early as out theme’s co-opener.
Speaking of classic seventies material – allow me to quote the wonderful opening lines of Steve Miller Band’s ‘The Joker’, featured in my initial list of ‘smoking songs’:
‘Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
‘Cause I speak of the pompatus of love…’
(My note – Ah, the pompatus of love, eh?)
*Typo in line two of my comment above, which should read: ‘you come in early as our theme’s co-opener’.*
Know Your Product – The Saints
Satisfaction – Rolling Stones
Thank you, Swish, for your two choices – both classics, in their own way.
Your selection of ‘Know Your Product’ made me think of another highly relevant song by The Saints – ‘Just Like Fire Would’, which has the line ‘I smoked my last pack of foreign cigarettes.’
Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette) – Tex Williams
Here’s 2 from Abba
Lay Your Love On Me (You’ve heard me say smoking was my only vice)
The Day Before You Came (I must have just lit my seventh cigarette at half past two)
Deep In a Dream (The smoke from my cigarette climbs through the air) – Frank Sinatra
I was a Fool (To Let you Go) (After I’d had my last cigarette) – Frank Sinatra
PS Sinatra also had a cover of Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette
Thanks, Fisho, for these. It’s not surprising that Sinatra has some smoking-connected songs – I often imagine him singing while holding a cigarette.
Alanis Morissette – Hand In My Pocket
”Cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flickin’ a cigarette’
Dropkick Murphys, whom I saw live last Sunday at the Forum:
“Rose Tattoo”
I’d wake up every morning and before I’d start each day
I’d take a drag from last night’s cigarette
That smoldered in it’s tray
Down a little something and then be on my way”
And the traditional ‘Whiskey in the jar’
“Now some men take delight in the drinking and the roving,
But others take delight in the gambling and the smoking.
But I take delight in the juice of the barley,
And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early”
Thank you, Karl, for ‘Hand in My Pocket’, a song I really like, incidentally – especially for its lyrics, which are inventive but often quite odd. One of my favourite popular song lines happens to be in this song, too: ‘I’m brave but I’m chicken shit.’ The song’s official video is a beauty, too.
Thanks, Smokie, for your two choices – I particularly loved the Irish influence.
‘The French Inhaler’ by Warren Zevon, a personal favourite – particularly the version from the live album Learning to Flinch.
Thank you, DB, for your excellent Zevon selection. This new theme is certainly attracting some great songs.
Here we go!
Cigarette and Coffee Blues, Lefty (written by Marty Robbins)
Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash
Smoking Johnny Cash, The Blackeyed Susans
Sunday Morning Coming Down, again, Johnny
The Gambler, Kenny
Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women – Jim Crece
Peace Pipe – B T Express
Two Cigarettes in the Dark – Bing Crosby
Don’t Smoke in Bed – Peggy Lee
Charlie Brown (I smell smoke in the auditorium) – The Coasters (Does this one qualify?)
These Foolish Things – sung by many, but blipped onto my radar screen via Bryan Ferry
‘A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces
An airline ticket to romantic places’
Here’s a couple from Slim Dusty
Sad Cigarette
I Must Have Good Terbaccy When I Smoke.
Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Loud, Loud Music – Conway Twitty
Killer Queen (Caviar and Cigarettes) – Queen
The Pot Smoker’s Song – Neil Diamond
Thanks Karl, reminded my of
Good Year for the Roses, George Jones:
I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick
On the cigarettes there in the ashtray
Lying cold the way you left them
At least your lips caressed them while you packed
then that reminded me of Little Elvis, so
Watching the Detectives:
He snatched at you and you match his cigarette
She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet
And for some reason John Prine popped into my head, so
When I Get to Heaven, with these ripper lyrics:
And then I’m gonna get a cocktail
Vodka and ginger ale
Yeah, I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long
I’m gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl
‘Cause this old man is goin’ to town
King of the Road – Roger Miller
I smoke old stogies I have found
Short, but not too big around.
Cheers, Burkie
David Bowie – Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide
‘Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger
Then another finger, then cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling
It lingers, then you forget
Oh, oh, oh, oh, you’re a rock ‘n’ roll suicide’
Duh.
Captain Beefheart; Blabber and Smoke. A CLASSIC!
The dubious Superlung My Supergirl by Terry Reid
Everybody Must Get Stoned
White Stripes 7 Nation Army (“back and forth through my mind, behind a cigarette)
And, THE MOTELS! Total control. Not mentioned in the song, but bonkers smoking in the film clip!
Many more, no time!
Thanks, Rick, for your range of (mainly country) songs. To select just one out many fine selections – jeez, I love the finely observed detail of lipstick on the cold, butted out cigarettes in the ashtray in George Jones ‘Good Year for the Roses’.
Your latest sets of song selections constitute further excellent contributions to the smoking theme, Fisho. Thank you for these.
And yes, ‘Charlie Brown’ certainly qualifies!
Thank you, Karl, for your most recent song choices – and I acknowledge that you were the earliest to mention a song involving lipstick on a cigarette. Women’s lipstick on cigarettes in an ashtray was a common sight in my youth; for obvious reasons, it’s something one basically doesn’t see anymore. Interestingly, almost all the girlfriends of my younger years smoked, as did I – just a sign of the times, I suppose.
Thanks, Burkie, for the quoted lyrics from ‘King of the Road’ – I included this song in my introductory list of songs involving smoking, but your inclusion of more lyrics from the song was fair enough, as these relevant lyrics were not mentioned by me.
Thank you, Matt Z, for your additions to our smoking theme.
Our overall list is developing very nicely!
Worth mentioning, while I’m thinking about it, that today, November 22, is the feast day of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians. Some time back, I wrote a ‘Songs for St Cecilia’s Day’ piece for the Footy Almanac website.
Lonely is the Hardest (Small hotel and smoking cigarettes) – Suzi Quatro
When I Was Young ( I smoked my first cigarette at ten) – Tina Turner
Contact High (I told ’em at first then I didn’t want to smoke) – Ike and Tina Turner
Thanks, Fisho, for your latest three.
I thought I might end day 1 with a trusty favourite…..
Tangled Up In Blue – Bob Dylan
‘She lit a burner on the stove
And offered me a pipe
“I thought you’d never say hello,” she said
“You look like the silent type”’
America – Simon and Garfunkel (One of my favourite Paul Simon songs)
““Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together
I’ve got some real estate here in my bag”
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies
And walked off to look for America
“Kathy,” I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitch-hike from Saginaw
I’ve come to look for America”
Peppers and Tomatoes – Ralph McTell (I have quoted this song before. It is about the war in Bosnia in the 90s)
(verse 3)
Military vehicles are passing through our village
Passing through our village with young soldiers ill at ease
Unsmiling and unshaven, distrustful and uncertain
Distrustful and uncertain and all smoking constantly”
(verse 8
“I am watering my garden when I 0the cigarette smoke
Smell the cigarette smoke and I turn ’round in the dust
And I see the glint of rifles but I cannot see the faces
But I recognize the voices that say, “You must come with us”
Warm and Soothing (Sitting in the lobby, mostly smoking) – Kate Bush
Then there’s this CORKER!
John Prine.
“Gunna smoke a cigarette that’s 9 miles long…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0EiV423j0M
Thanks, Karl, for your latest choice – ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ has been the ultimate multi-theme song in this ongoing themed series of ours.
Thank you, Dave, for two fine, thematically spot-on songs – and the excellent, telling quotations we’ve come to expect and appreciate.
Thanks, Fisho, for Kate Bush’s lovely ‘Warm and Soothing’. Incidentally, like many of us, Kate was a big smoker back in the day, but gave up at a point in her life some considerable time ago.
Thanks, Matt, for your latest contribution. (Rick Kane already put this Prine song forward earlier in the comments section.)
Maggie’s Farm – Bob Dylan
‘I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa, no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa, no more
Well, he puts his cigar out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window it is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door’
Thank you, Karl, for ‘Maggie’s Farm’ – I’m wondering how many ‘songs involving smoking’ are in Dylan’s body of work – we shall soon get a very good idea, I suppose.
Nick Teen and Al K. Hall (He said to me, boy easy to see boy you should try a cigarette or two. So I lit a fag and I took a drag. Then to my great surprise, I started to gasp and coughed like a rasp.) – Rolf Harris
Thanks for your latest input, Fisho.
I’m afraid the contribution to this theme from the Nobel laureate will be comparatively short.
Does this qualify…..
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind?
“One toke over the line, Sweet Jesus…..” – Brewer and Shipley
“I smuggled some smokes and folks from Mexico…………give me weed, whites and wine……” – Willin’ by Little Feat (songwriting genius Lowell George dead at 34 from heroin overdose)
Can’t Hardly Wait, The Replacements (Jesus rides beside me/He never buys any smokes/Hurry up, hurry up/Ain’t you had enough of this stuff?/Ashtray floors, dirty clothes and filthy jokes)
Little Billy The Who (Now Billy and his classmates are middle-aged/With children of their own/Their smoking games are reality now/And cancer’s seed is sown)
Roll Me Up, Willie (Roll me up and smoke me when I die/And if anyone don’t like it, just look ’em in the eye/I didn’t come here, and I ain’t leavin’/So don’t sit around and cry/Just roll me up and smoke me when I die)
Under the Sun, Paul Kelly (Leaving South Fremantle in a Falcon panel van/We were smoking Marlboro, always singing Barbara Ann)
My Sunday Feeling – Jethro Tull
“Won’t somebody tell me where I laid my head last night?
Won’t somebody tell me where I laid my head last night?
I really don’t remember,
But give me one more cigarette and I think I might”.
Surabaya Johnny – Marianne Faithfull
“You said a lot, Johnny
All one big lie, Johnny
You cheated me blind, Johnny
From the minute we met
I hate you so, Johnny
When you stand there grinning, Johnny
Take that damn pipe out of your mouth, you rat”
(This is a song by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht from a Musical called Happy End originally performed in Germany in 1929. Marianne Faithfull released an album of Brecht and Weill songs in 1996 called 20th Century Blues)
Paper Sun – Traffic
“In the room where you’ve been sleeping
All your clothes are thrown about
Cigarettes burn window sills
Your meter’s all run out
But then again it’s nothing
You just split when day is done (Day is done)
Hitching lifts to nowhere, hung up on the paper sun”
The Boys Light Up – Australian Crawl
“I wanna tell you ’bout my mountain home
Where all the ladies’ names are Joan
Where husband works back late at night
Hopes are up for trousers down with a hostess on a business flight
Oh, taxi in a Mercedes drive
I hope that driver’s comin’ out alive
The garden, it is dorseted, that lady, she’s so corseted
She’s got fifteen ways to lead that boy astray
He thinks he’s one and only, but that lovely, she’s so lonely
She pumps him full of breakfast and she sends him on his way
[Pre-Chorus]
What a sing-song dance
What a performance
What a cheap tent show
Oh, no, no, no, no, no
[Chorus]
Then the boys light up
Then the boys light up
Then the boys light up
Then the boys light up, light up, light up
Then the boys light up
Then the boys light up
Then the boys light up
Then the boys light up, light up, light up”
Thanks, Karl, for ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. It definitely qualifies for this songlist because, of course, smoke rings involve smoking – songs mentioning smoky bars would qualify for this theme in the same way.
Thank you, Rick, for your latest four choices. At a quick, somewhat sleepy, early morning glance, I first thought your third choice was called ‘Roll Me up, Willie’ – as opposed to Willie Nelson’s ‘Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die’!
Slightly out of sequence (in terms of my responses), thanks, Peter B, for your Brewer and Shipley, and Little Feat numbers.
Our ‘smoking list’ is certainly developing in a highly interesting, rich and diverse manner.
Thanks for your latest selections – and quotations – Dave. So glad you included that classic Oz smoking song, ‘The Boys Light Up’. What a wonderful song it is, too! Ah yes, ‘The garden, it is dorseted, that lady, she’s so corseted…’ Australian Pub Rock wit at its best!
Continuing with an earlier sub-theme…..
Benny Spellman – Lipstick Traces On A Cigarette (1962)
‘Lipstick traces (oh) on a cigarette
Every memory lingers with me yet’
Notable covers by The O’Jays & Ringo Starr.
Between Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff this morning ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ came on the radio, and has consecutive references-
They snap their teeth on your cigarette
Foreign types with the hookah pipes…
Nice topic, KD.
Cigarette: Ben Folds Five
Are ‘friends’ electric?: Gary Numan
Sweet is the night: Electric Light Orchestra
Any day above ground: James Reyne
Stood up: James Reyne
My old school: Steely Dan
Pumping on your stereo: Supergrass
Even the losers: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
I put the light on: The Sports
That’s the way I’ve always heard it should be: Carly Simon
Marrakesh Express: Crosby Stills and Nash
After the fire: Roger Daltrey
Lion in the winter: James Reyne
No secrets: James Reyne
Charcoal Lane – Archie Roach
“Spinning yarns
And telling jokes
Now the wine is tasting good
As its getting closer and closer to it’s end
Have a sip
And roll some smokes
We’d smoke ‘Tailor mades’ if we could
Oh, we just make do with some city street blend”
(and how do you grow the stuff to smoke?)
Copperhead Road – Steve Earle
“I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first ’round here, anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
I came home with a brand-new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
I just plant it up a holler down Copperhead Road
And now the DEA’s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screamin’ like I’m back over there
I learned a thing or two from Charlie, don’t you know?
You better stay away from Copperhead Road”
(At last, a folk song)*
Lazy Harry’s – traditional Australian
“Well we chucked our blooming swags off and we walked into the bar
And we called for rum-an’-raspb’ry and a shilling each cigar
But the girl that served the poison she winked at Bill and I
And we camped at Lazy Harry’s not five miles from Gundagai”
This is a song about shearers at the end of the season who stop at a pub on their way home and drink away their earnings.
*I am currently on holidays in WA which means that I can’t consult my collection of 60s and 70s folk records to refresh my memory of appropriate songs.
The Marlboro song
I don’t usually count advertising jingles as popular songs however in the early 60s Marlboro had a ubiquitous ad which went :- “You get a lot to like with a Marlboro, Filter, Flavour, Flip-top box”. We used to sing at High School. “You get a lot to like with a Marlboro, Sore throat, Cancer, Six Foot Box” Despite the message of our satire most of us were smoking at the time.
“
Thanks, Karl, for your groovy Benny Spellman song connected to the particularly interesting ‘lipstick on a cigarette’ sub-theme.
Pleased you’re enjoying the topic, Mickey – thanks for ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’, a pop-rock favourite of mine.
Thanks, Liam, for your contributions – an interesting array of songs, as usual. I think ‘Marrakesh Express’ is a fine example of the interesting, good quality (or better) songs this smoking theme is eliciting.
Thank you, Dave, for your latest round of songs and quotations. Even if you don’t have your collection of folk records at your fingertips, it was good to see ‘Lazy Harry’s’ get a guernsey as a representative of that genre.
Lazy Mary (Lazy Mary you better get up. We need the sheets for the table. Lazy Mary you smoke in bed) – Lou Monte
Thanks, Fisho, for ‘Lazy Mary’ – I’ll give it a listen.
Who Killed Davey Moore – Bob Dylan
“Not me”, said his manager
Puffing on a big cigar
“It’s hard to say, it’s hard to tell
I always thought that he was well
It’s too bad for his wife an’ kids he’s dead
But if he was sick he should’ve said
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”
Thanks, Karl – and Bob D – for your most recent contribution.
Bob.
Yes, you, you just sit around and ask for ashtrays, can’t you reach? (She’s Your Lover Now)
An’ he just smoked my eyelids / An’ punched my cigarette (Stuck Inside of Mobile)
I lit a cigarette on a parking meter and walked on down the road (Talkin’ World War III Blues)
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level (The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll)
Smoke a custom-made cigar / Wear an alligator boot (Catfish)
I’m strumming on my gay guitar / Smoking a cheap cigar (Standing in the Doorway)
Wants me to grow a cigar on my face (I Shall Be Free)
Great set of songs coming through, with a nod to PBs Little Feat song Willin, which Linda Ronstadt does an excellent version, but nothing beats Lowell George, as PB noted.
I should also mention KD, an excellent set of songs to get us revved up and thinking. As per your sleepy read of my Willie song, that came from you including the Peter Tosh song in your introduction. And with that, I’ll throw in my next song, It’s All Going to Pot, by Willie and Merle, another ripper from these two legends!
Also:
From Cold Chisel, who I missed this time around -damn – Cheap Wine (Once I smoked a Danneman cigar/I drove a foreign car/Baby, that was years ago).
This is a nod to Dave Nadal, who as usual is putting up terrific songs. Another from Steve Earle, with one of his finest lyrics. Guitar Town (Gotta keep rockin’ why I still can/I gotta two pack habit and a motel tan).
One of The Clash’s best songs is Stay Free, sung by Mick and apparently autobiographical (You always made me laugh/Got me in bad fights/Play me pool all night/Smokin’ menthol).
We all know this song, That’s Entertainment, The Jam (Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes/Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume/A hot summer’s day and sticky black tarmac/Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away).
Onyas
Thanks, DB, for your highly impressive selection of Dylan songs connected to smoking. Wonderful, indeed!
Thanks so much, Rick, for your latest bunch of comments and song choices. (I felt that ‘Cheap Wine’ was a particularly good pickup.) I especially liked your highly positive nods to other contributors to this smoking theme. Furthermore, after being involved in so many themed Almanac songlists, this current theme is one of my absolute favourites because of the fine, diverse collection of songs that are being put forward.
Re Peter Tosh, I thought his inclusion might provoke a large number of reggae songs, but this hasn’t occurred – yet. (And this is simply an observation, not meant to be in any way critical.)
Cheers.
Arlo Guthire – Alice’s Restaurant
If I was to include the entire lyric to give the ‘smoking’ theme in this song some context, it would go on for quite a while…so a brief excerpt:
‘And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over….’
This is perhaps more pertinent in the context that Alice Brock, who was the ‘Alice’ that inspired the song died last Wednesday 21 Nov.
Thanks, Karl, for ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ – certainly spot-on in terms of our theme and a sixties classic to boot.
Another James Reyne song to add to the list is Trouble in Paradise (lyrics include “They smoke Havana cigars”).
Also a song by The Who, titled We’re not gonna take it (lyrics include “hey you smoking mother nature”).
Two more for our highly interesting songlist – thanks, Liam.
How about I do the British folk edition?
Nick Drake, ‘Smoking Too Long’:
Well, when I’m smoking
Put my worries on a shelf
Don’t think about nothin’
Try not to see myself
Tell me, tell me
What have I done wrong?
Ain’t nothing go right with me
Must be I’ve been smoking too long
Well, in these blues, I’m singin’
There’s a lesson to be learned
Don’t go around smokin’
Unless you want to get burned
Tell me, tell me
What have I done wrong?
Ain’t nothing go right with me
Must be I’ve been smoking too
Ain’t nothing go right with me
Must be I’ve been smoking too
Everything gone wrong with me
Must be I’ve been smoking too long
Fairport Convention, ‘Ginnie’:
Everyone can hear the music
You can taste the mood of the wine
Getting high on the beer and the atmosphere of a good time
You can hear everyone laughing
Like they’ve got something to share
Cigarette smoke and bad jokes hang in the air
Fairport again, ‘The Happy Man’:
With his pipe and his friends puffing hours away
Singing song after song till he hails the new day
He can laugh, dance and sing and smoke without fear
Be as happy as a king till he hails a new year
Ralph McTell, ‘Slow Burning Companion’:
Cigarette smoke, slow burning companion
I’m stuck between trains on a midnight station
… and ‘The Fairground’:
I stopped to light my last cigarette
The fair was lit up in its glow
I threw it away but the light seemed to stay
Like ’twere moonlight shining on snow
And I hardly dare breathe
I just couldn’t believe
Then the music started to flow
The prolific Trad.: ‘Felix the Soldier’:
I will bid my spade adieu for I cannot dig the bog
But I can play me fiddle O and I can drink me grog
I have learned to smoke a pipe and I can fire a gun
To the divil with the fighting I am glad the war is done
Sandy Denny, ‘Easy to Slip’:
Well I don’t want to drift forever
In the shadow of your leaving me
So I’ll light another cigarette
And try to remember to forget
Probably fitting to end there with Sandy, who reportedly (and audibly) smoked enough to change her voice over the years.
This song is a nod to Harmsy essay, In a Country Pub, while it isn’t Australian and it’s more about a Texan bar, the sentiment is similar:
I Love this Bar, Toby Keith, yep, I’m not necessarily a fan of his stuff or his politics, I do like this song, like a lot (We got winners/We got losers/Chain-smokers and boozers/We got yuppies/We got bikers/We got thirsty hitchhikers/And the girls next door dress up like movie stars/Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, I love this bar)
On the same album there’s a song called Weed with Willie, and you just know it’s autobiographical! (We hopped on his old bus the Honeysuckle Rose/The party was Huntsville, it was after the show/Alone in the front lounge, just me and him/I took one friendly puff and the grim creeper set in/I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again)
Here’s a lesser known Slim Dusty song from the early 90s, we saw Slim in the late 80s at the Perth Concert Hall, great venue and Slim was on song, I’ve thrown this one in to round back to country life and pubs, this is called An Independent Bloke, written with an old bush poet, named Tom Oliver, don’t know much about him other than he co-wrote a few songs with Slim, he’s from Qld and not to be mistaken for the guy who played in Neighbours but better remembered from Number 96. Anyways the songs is about an old bushie who is confronted by a young pen-pusher at the CES (I was standin’ in line all the mornin’/To answer an ad that I saw/Regarding the job on the council/There was me and quite a few more/A dried up ole bushie before me/Pulled a battered old tin from his coat/And from fine cut and Tally Ho papers/Proceeded to roll up a smoke)
Onyas
The Gambler – Kenny Rogers (one of the few Rogers’ hits that is not offensively misogynistic or hypermacho)
“So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light
And the night got deathly quiet and his face lost all expression
Said, “If you’re gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right”
Sugar Mountain – Neil Young
“Oh to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons
You can’t be 20 on Sugar Mountain
Though you’re thinking that
You’re leavin’ there too soon
You’re leavin’ there too soon
[Verse 3]
Now you’re underneath the stairs
And you’re giving back some glares
To the people who you met
And it’s your first cigarette”
Desperadoes Waiting for a Train – Guy Clark (my favourite Guy Clark song)
“One day I looked up and he’s pushin’ eighty
And there’s brown tobacco stains all down his chin
Well to me he’s one of the heroes of this country
So why’s he all dressed up like them old men
Drinking beer and playin’ Moon and Forty-two
Just like a desperado waiting for a train
Like a desperado waiting for a train”
(Thanks Andrew Gaylard for listing Slow Burning Companion, which I should have remembered earlier)
Thank you, Andrew G, for your input – wonderful stuff, indeed! You’ve certainly added a highly significant folk dimension to the overall songlist.
Thanks for your latest (country) input to our theme, Rick. As you know, I enjoy Slim getting a guernsey whenever possible. Cheers.
Enjoyed your latest contribution, Dave. Thank you. (Seems like the older one gets, the more one appreciates songs like ‘Desperados Waiting For The Train’.)
So good to see Dave N add Neil Young’s ‘Sugar Mountain’. I recall reading that Neil regarded the verse:
‘Now you’re underneath the stairs
And you’re giving back some glares
To the people who you met
And it’s your first cigarette’
as the worst verse he had ever written. Mind you he was only 19 at the time.
Thanks, Karl, for your latest input. Interesting opinion expressed by Young.
Yes, the verse is a bit of a clanger, but there are, of course, plenty of worse ones in the popular song canon..
Crying In My Sleep – Jimmy Webb
“I smoked my first pack of cigarettes today”
He puts “half a case away” and takes a “sleepin’ pill” in the same verse.
Good one, Earl. Thanks for the Jimmy Webb song. He’s a fine songwriter.
‘C’était toi (You Were the One)’ written and performed by Billy Joel (1980), certainly involves smoking. Its opening lines are:
‘Here I am again
In this smoky place
With my brandy eyes…’
and then there is Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ (1973)
Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there’s some place that he’d rather be
Thanks for ‘Piano Man’, Karl. Probably there’s a couple more relevant Joel songs, too – smoky bars seem to be a typical Joel milieu.
Of course! (Eureka moment here!) One of Billy Joel’s top half dozen songs, in my opinion, is ‘Captain Jack’ from his 1973 Piano Man album. ‘Captain Jack’ contains the line – ‘So you play your albums and you smoke your pot’.