The 15 Best Cigarette References in Songs: When Smoking is More Than it Seems

Lyric: "Light a cigarette and think of you and walk away"

Sharon Van Etten is well-known for her musical cataloguing of past wounds and their effects on her heart, so its no surprise that "A Crime" is about relational transgression and not actual law-breaking. When she lights up here, its part of the defiant process of turning her back on the broken past, it's a move made with finality. Sometimes, it takes a substance to help close the door on habits that are more addicting and harmful to our hearts.

Lyric: "Gonna be the biggest thing to hit these little kids / Bigger than guns, bigger than cigarettes"

There's really nothing that sounds better than a rapper swagging out in grinning, hyperbolic metaphor. Atmosphere's infamous claim that they'll be bigger than two of the most lucrative, dangerous and sensationalized industries in the history of the United States is certainly one of the best moments in the history of both Atmosphere and cigarettes—if only it had come true. Imagine billboards for Slug instead of Camels? Imagine that the biggest debate in this country was whether or not owning Atmosphere albums was safe? It'd be awesome.

Lyric: "My fingertips, and my lips, they burn / From the cigarettes / Forrest Gump, you run my mind boy"

This song is off Frank Ocean's critically acclaimed major label debut Channel Orange and sparked a wave of controversy with its use of male pronouns. In fact, it was from rumors surrounding this track that Frank took to Tumblr to reveal his bisexuality—a factor that seemed important in 2013—hopefully future visitors will read this and laugh. Anyway, the physical sensations that Ocean attributes to cigarettes in this song mirror the desire we feel for a latent crush or impossible partner.

Lyric: "Last cigarettes are all you can get / Turning your orbit around"

Wilco's plaintiff ballad off their stand-out album Yankee Foxtrot Hotel feels like a study in slowly giving up. Which is exactly how the last cigarette of the night often feels—it's usually even more unnecessary in every way than all the ones that came before—but it feels like the last bit of freedom left in the night before everything ends. Sometimes a cigarette is all you need to feel like space and time are malleable.

Lyric: "I would love to have another drink of coffee now / And please, darling, help me smoke this one more cigarette now / I don't want no cream and sugar 'Cause I've got you, now darling"

If I wasn't already fully assured that Otis Redding was a pretty chill dude, I am firmly convinced by this lyric that he and I would have been best friends. First of all, staying up till all hours of the morning drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes with a new love sounds like heaven on earth—but the analogy he makes about not needing cream and sugar anymore because of his baby is just divine inspiration! The combination of coffee and cigarettes is one that has been around, even before Otis was wasting his time sitting on the dock of the bay, but the way his voice caresses them reveals the special aura that every day substances can take on in the presence of a loved one.

Lyric: "And I'm talking to myself at night / Because I can't forget / Back and forth through my mind / Behind a cigarette"

I like the image of Jack White pacing around, muttering to himself and smoking a cigarette. The band does something with the drums and bassline in that beginning section of "Seven Nation Army" that feels exactly like the antsy pacing of a smoker. But the way White wrote this line is even more interesting—he places himself behind the cigarette, as if he's hiding behind it or using it as protection. This is a very apt image, as many smokers use their cigarettes as shields from the outside world. It's funny to think of Jack White needing a cigarette to hide behind, but I guess we must remember that rockstars are human too.

Lyric: "Oh girl your silhouette / Make me wanna light a cigarette"

Trust Kanye to turn the craving for nicotine into something sexual, or to turn the draw of a beautiful woman into a more easily explainable yearning. It's also interesting that 'Ye references one of the most widely black-listed and unhealthy habits in a song that is blatantly about working out and maintaining a "healthy" lifestyle. But the idea that a woman is beautiful enough to shake Kanye into needing a cigarette is still a funny thought. Also, given Yeezy's trail of lyrics celebrating the many sillhouettes of women the world over, this lyric might also be an admission that he's a heavy smoker? Then again, maybe not, it was impossible to find a photo of Yeezy smoking anything other than a swaggy stogey. And now that he has a baby on the way, he has to set a good example for 'Ye Jr.

Lyric: "You light a cigarette, / I wish I had the guts to bum one / But we've never met / And I hope that I don't fall in love with you"

Sometimes smoking a cigarette seems like the ideal way to connect with an as-yet-unmet-love-interest. You see them head out to take a quick smoke and following after them feels neither creepy nor pathetic, it's merely two human beings who are addicted to the same life-threatening substance—sexy, right? Well, in this case, Tom Waits can't even get up the courage to go ask this girl he's pining over if he can bum a cigarette! That is a pretty sweet sentiment, Tom. It does seem a little odd though, imagining Tom as shy... that is definintely not the word that first jumps into my mind when I think about him. Also, this song is one of the best examples of how inevitable love can feel sometimes, almost as inevitable as picking up a tobacco habit while living in New York City.

Lyric: "One more coffee / One more cigarette / One more morning trying to forget / If I had the chance to join your dance, I wouldn't like to bet your game is something yet"

Van Morrison is a god among men, and the real sin is that so few people know that. In fact, most listeners will probably recognize this song as a B-side track from The Dead Weather—one of Jack White's side projects—but it was originally penned and performed by Van Morrison and his band Them. Van does an excellent job here using his voice, enhanced with a special booming, echo-y effect, to convey the monotony and meaningless power contained within the games of money and power that we play. The track decries the loss of a friend who has sold out to have the trappings of a luxurious life, and beginning it with a focus on the next coffee, the next cigarette, and how he wants to forget this loss, Van reveals the escapism we seek through every day rituals.

Lyric: "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"

One of the things Neil Young is good at is describing social situations in which the lonely, introspective narrator relates his alienation from the rest of society. It never gets old though, because he manages to capture the nuances of various settings with uncanny ability. In this particular song, Neil paints the picture of a carnival or fair, and how the facade and trappings of a "fun" place like Sugar Mountain quickly fall away. The line here, though, about him glaring at the crowd and hiding underneath the stairs to smoke his first cigarette feels like a perfect summation of so many juvenile "first time" encounters. It also speaks to the way that humans try to use cigarettes to separate themselves out from others, or take a break from larger group settings, in many ways taking a smoke break functions as an escape from the monotony of otherwise unrelenting social pressures.

Lyric: "I'd smoked my mind the night before / With cigarettes and songs I'd been picking"

The king of country anthems revels in his Sunday behavior, and it's just what you'd expect from the sometimes reveler sometimes pious Johnny Cash. Originally penned by Kris Kristofferson, the track is full of nostalgia and second glances the track references his behavior from the previous night with relish and a little disdain. Although Cash is well-known for cleaning up his act later in life to woo the winsome June Carter, this track certainly relates the lifestyle he lived before her moral compass helped guide him toward other hobbies. Plus the phrase "I'd smoked my mind" is such a good metaphor for the nights when you have just had one too many smokes—even if Kristofferson wrote it—Cash delivers the line with that sheepish sincerity that only he is capable of using.

Lyric: "I've been standing on a corner / Since a quarter after seven / I was down to my last cigarette / And the clock in the window / At a quarter to eleven"

As far as a way to pass the time while waiting in public, cigarettes are possibly the best invention on earth. But Elvis isn't waiting for just anyone, he's searching for the one! And lo and behold, he finds her after waiting only three and some change hours. I mean, I'm not mad that he found a girl that evokes biblical comparisons like "the taste of milk and honey" it just seems extremely serendipitous. Then again, if anyone deserves that kind of bliss, it's the king. Also relevant in this lyric is that inexplicable feeling of only having one cigarette left, obviously you can always buy more, but somehow it feels like the stakes are much higher, like this last one holds some sort of special power. In Elvis' case it certainly did!

Lyric:"He just smoked my eyelids and punched my cigarette"

In a song that is surreptitiously full of cultural commentary while swathed in nonsense, Bob Dylan delivers one of his most compelling and hilarious lines in this track with dead-pan disregard. The obvious swap out of the subjects of "cigarette" and "eyelids" here creates layers of meaning that are impossible to decipher, as most Dylan lyrics are. Given earlier context from the song though, the implication of the line  is someone who uses others without regard for their subjectivity—a topic that endlessly plagued Bob. The image of some dude punching a smoking Bob Dylan is pretty odd, but the thought of him smoking Bobby D's eyelashes is even more bizarre.

Lyric: We gotta stop smokin', stop, stop / I mean cigarette smokin' / Or else I cough myself to death / And to make love to you baby, / I wouldn't even have the breath"

Shout out to Jimi Hendrix for clarifying that he wants to stop smoking cigarettes—not other, uh, substances. Also his priorities in this song are very compelling, he's going to quit tobacco because it's interfering with his ability to make love to his baby... very important health concern there. Jimi is on point lyrically in this song, pairing his always-fierce guitar solos with lines like "Gotta keep on moving / To understand both sides of the sky." In a lot of ways this track feels like an attempt on his part to be better, and an encouragement that others join him. Sadly, this track is off an album of the same name that was release after his death—even post-humously though, Hendrix urges his listeners to keep searching and trying to understand all sides of life. And to stop smoking if it interferes with serious concerns like affairs of the heart.

Lyric: "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 pies / And we walked off to look for America"

This song takes the cake as the best reference to cigarettes that exists in melodic form. Paul Simon's innocent lilting voice over the effortless acoustic guitar and strings evoke a sense of wanderlust that is overpowering. The idea that all the two needed for subsistence on this journey—the search for their country—was pies and cigarettes perfectly completes the picture of child-like naivete.

It's not that smoking is inherently American, it's just that the silly disregard for the impenetrable facts of death and aging is a hallmark of you, and one that is especially endearing in this journeyman's anthem. Simon & Garfunkel are looking for America, looking for themselves and searching for a greater meaning in all this mess... if they smoke a few cigarettes on the way then so be it.