Snapshots #290: A Top Ten Smoking Songs

Castro your mind back 24 hours to yesterday's smoking Snapshots clues. I hope you didn't have to Fidel around too much to work them out.

I've only ever smoked about three cigarettes in my life, and each time I did, it was with the express intention of impressing a girl. And it never worked.

Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health (and Self-Respect).

10. Inside the Boa Sisters.

Possibly the most obvious photo I've ever run here. The clue was academic. They haven't changed a bit. (Except to get more annoying.)

Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol

9. Sounds like you should send a message to Hank.

Text Williams!

Tex Williams - Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)

8. Gory sweethearts.

My Bloody Valentine - Cigarette In Your Bed

Sounds like a 70s Public Safety Film waiting to happen.

7. Crossroads handyman lays out the letters for male.

The Crossroads handyman was Benny. He's just learned how to Spell 'Man'.

Benny Spellman - Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)

6. Surround sound.

Dolby Surround Sound, that is.

Thomas Dolby - Close But No Cigar

5. Hounds of Love.

Dogs D'Amour - Lady Nicotine

4. They're Abba-cum-Wham.

It's an anagram!

Chumbawamba - Give the Anarchist a Cigarette

3. Almond. Soy. Coconut. COW'S.

Cow's is the LOUDER milk.

John D. Loudermilk - Tobacco Road

That's the original. You may be more familiar with the Nashville Teens version (they weren't from Nashville and were mostly in their twenties), but the clue wouldn't have been as good.

2. 11 + 4 + Half the words we speak.

The 11th letter of the alphabet is K. The 4th is D. The words we speak are language. Half of that...

kd lang - My Last Cigarette

You could also have had any of the other songs on kd's smoking-themed LP 'Drag'. Or, to be honest, I'd also have allowed this...

kd lang - Constant Craving

1. How Shakespeare might announce he's just arrived at one of the country's biggest festivals.

O! Tis' Reading! I hope it's not another mudbath this year...

Otis Redding - Cigarettes and Coffee

Saturday Snapshots will be back next week, but it will be strictly NO SMOKING.

My Top Ten Lipstick Songs

One for the laydeez, the cross-dressers and the Robert Smiths among you...


10. Lit - Lipstick & Bruises

Even if you're not a fan of early 21st century American punk-pop, this is worth watching for the amusing video about mullets. (Which has nothing to do with lipstick, but still.)

9. Caro Emerald - The Lipstick On His Collar

Not the sugary pop Connie Francis song from the 50s, this is way sexier...

8. Angelica - Lipstick Kiss

Only 34 youtube views? Angelica deserve more respect.

7. Christy Moore - Mystic Lipstick 

 I've only recently discovered Christy Moore, but this won't be the last we hear of him round these parts.

6. The Buzzcocks - Lipstick

Never let it be said that the Buzzcocks didn't ponder the great existential questions of our time...

When you kiss me
Does the lipstick on your lip stick on my face?

5. Benny Spellman - Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)

Recorded by everyone from the O'Jays to the Beautiful South to Ringo Starr, this is the original from 1962 New Orleans. Nice.

4. Elvis Costello - Lipstick Vogue

Ah, the other young Elvis... nobody did spite like him. 

Don't say you love me when it's just a rumour
Don't say a word if there is any doubt.
Sometimes I think that love is just a tumour;
you've got to cut it out.

3. Skint & Demoralised - Red Lipstick

Matt Abbott's biggest/only hit/"hit" single. It reached #100 in the hot one hundred.

Which only goes to prove that the record-buying public are idiots.

She likes red lipstick,
Fish & chips,
Orange juice and trips to the seaside...

2. Echo & The Bunnymen - Lips Like Sugar

I might be stretching the rules a little here, but I figure if she's really giving you sugar kisses, either it's a flavoured lipstick... or she's been gorging on Mars Bars prior to the snog. Either way, this is the first time I've managed to squeeze an Echo & The Bunnymen song onto this blog in 18 months, which is a crime against all reason. How the hell did it take me this long?

1. Pulp - Lipgloss

And this is why Jarvis Cocker should be canonised...

And you feel such a fool,
for laughing at bad jokes,
and putting up with all of his friends,
and kissing in public.
What are they gonna say, when they run into you again?
That your stomach looks bigger and your hair is a mess,
and your eyes are just holes in your face.
And it rains every day,
and when it doesn't,
the sun makes you feel worse anyway. Oh!

Sorry, Shaky: Lipstick, Poweder & Paint wasn't your finest hour.

But which lipstick lyric makes you want to pucker up?