songs ever written. In fact, smokes are
listed right up there with an airline ticket
to romantic places. The same ‘lipstick on
a cigarette’ theme appeared about 15 years
later on
LipstickTraces,
amodest R&Bhit
by Benny Spellman (Minit 644).
Just how sexy can a cigarette get? Ask
Patti Page, who tells us how she fell in
love while lying beside her lover in bed.
Pretty racy stuff for a 1954 pop lyric. So
is
Smoke Rings,
recorded two years earlier
by Les Paul and the multi-tracked Mary
Ford, who shows us what a dreamy, lazy,
hazy smoking lover sounds like.
The pain of waiting for and doubting a
lover is eased by a cigarette and some coffee
(theold twin addictions) forMartyRobbins
in
CigarettesandCoffeeBlues,
BobbyEdwards
in
You’reTheReason,
GlenGlenn in
OneCup
OfCoffeeAndACigarette
andBillyWalker in
Down To My Last Cigarette.
The theme of
‘anotherwoman’ isexpressedusingacigarette
metaphor by both Patsy Cline (
Three
Cigarettes InAnAshtray
) andBonnieGuitar
(
ThreeOnAMatch).
Sometimes puffing on a cigarette ismore
than just away to forget a lost love. It canbe
part of what brought the lovers together in
the first place. On
Coffee and Cigarettes,
10
