Because all my friends smoked in that interzone between smoking bans, I picked up the habit. I did not fortunately become addicted. To this day I smoke one a day at night, optionally, a second or — during pre-COVID travel days — a third. I defer pleasures.
These artists did not. It’s remarkable to think of how normal chain or casual smoking remained through the early ’00s. Many of them allude to the act as a matter of course. Distraction, end in itself, substitute — here we are.
1. Patsy Cline – 3 Cigarettes in the Ashtray
2. Dramarama – Last Cigarette
3. Al Green – Take Me to the River
4. Rufus Wainwright – Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
5. Captain Beefheart -Blabber ‘n Smoke
6. Lefty Frizzell – Cigarettes and Coffee Blues
7. Wilco – Jesus, Etc.
8. Brownsville Station – Smokin’ in the Boys Room
9. Cigarettes and Coffee – Otis Redding
10. The Fiery Furnaces – Smelling Cigarettes
11. More Cigarettes – The Replacements
13. David Bowie – Rock’n’Roll Suicide
14. Tori Amos – Spark
15. Guns ‘N Roses – Night Train
16. Siouxsie & the Banshees – Nicotine Stain
17. The Smiths – What She Said
18. Daryl Hall – You Burn Me Up I’m a Cigarette
19. Tex Williams – Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
20. Gary Stewart – Cafffine, Nicotine, Benzedrine
21. The Kinks – Harry Rag
22. Miranda Lambert – Smokin’ and Drinkin’
Humanizing The Vacuum 