Why It Matters

I’ve never been a smoker, though I’ve tried. It’s just such a boring habit. You have to buy the smokes. You have to light the smokes. You have to smoke the smokes. When you’re done, you’re left with smoldering garbage. It’s really a bore.

And more than a bore, it’s so inelegant. Disposable lighters are ugly and manufactured cigarettes lack any character. If smoking still required my grandfather’s rituals, maybe I’d feel differently. He carried a pouch of tobacco in one shirt pocket and a pack of cigarette papers in the other. Watching him roll a cigarette was the bee’s knees.

Yes, and watching him maintain his Zippo was even more fascinating–filling it up, replacing the flint, all that good stuff–and if that wasn’t cool enough, he’d light it with that slick move old guys used to do where they’d swipe the metal lighter against their thigh to flick lid the lid open, and then once again to spark it.

Maybe that’s what I’ll do: buy a Zippo and play with it. That always looked like the best part of smoking.

Anyway, smoking songs:

 

“Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette),” Tex Williams.

“Cigarettes and Coffee Blues,” Lefty Frizell.

“Cigarettes and Alcohol,” Oasis.

“Weed, Beer, Cigarettes,” Fishbone.

“Cigarettes,” X-Ray Spex.

“Cigarettes,” The Wreckers.

“Cigarettes,” King’s X.

“Twenty Small Cigars,” Jean-Luc Ponty.

There you have it: eight songs to flick your Bic by. What did I miss? I’m listening.