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I think I've smoked about three cigarettes in my life, and each time was to impress a girl. The same girl. I suppose I kind of liked the buzz, but not enough (thankfully) to become addicted or have any desire to spend any of my own hard-earned cash on the things. How many fewer CDs would have I have been able to afford, if I'd developed a habit? How many comics would I not have been able to buy?
My dad smoked cigars when I was a kid, and I always loved the smell of them. As he got older, and had less money, he switched to a pipe and tobacco. I've probably mentioned this before, but one day in his early 60s, a doctor told him, "you keep smoking that pipe and you won't be here in ten years time". So my dad quit, cold turkey, and lived another 30 years... although arguably some damage had already been done, and he struggled with emphysema and other bronchial disorders, and (old age aside), those were probably what got him in the end.
My Mum only smoked the occasional cigarette, at parties. Whenever I saw her with one in her hand, I became upset. I grew up watching some pretty graphic smoking ads on TV... from an early age, I was pretty well indoctrinated against fags... unless I thought I might use one to get a girl to like me.
It's hard to believe now just how much the smell of cigarette smoke used to be everywhere when we were teenagers... and how rare it is to smell them these days. It's all bloody vapes with the kids these days. Horrible things, with their claggy, artificial scents. Makes me feel a certain nostalgia for fag smoke... and definitely for cigars.
Here are a few more songs about smoking...
Golden Earring - Smoking Cigarettes
What about you? Are you a reformed smoker? Or still sneaking one down a dark alley when nobody's looking?
Great post, Rol - I have lots of similar memories, the smell of smoke in pubs, venues, restaurants, trains... my mum smoking... very much part of growing up at one time. I smoked too, at college and into my early twenties, not loads but enough to make me hanker for one at certain times of day, that nicotine rush. It got really bad when getting together with heavy smoker friends and we'd have these evenings when we'd all run out of ciggies and end up searching the ashtray for any redeemable dog-ends (now, there's a word from a different world!). Ughhhhh! Then just stopped completely and never looked back...
ReplyDeleteI have another ciggie-related track for you, I love this. 'Cigarettes' by PragVEC from 1978:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEldoRTt0fk&list=RDSEldoRTt0fk&start_radio=1
(With added musical trivia note: PragVEC vocalist Susan Gogan is the sister of Barbara Gogan from the Passions.)