My Favorite Cigarette Jingles

Here's a short audio review of some of my favorite cigarette jingles from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Different cigarette brands explored many different musical styles and genres to best advertise their brands, and these clips truly represent a golden age of cigarette marketing. If I left out your favorite jingle, please let me know!

My Favorite Cigarette Jingles by laforet18

Obama and Smoking

Just recently, it was revealed that a courthouse in Nebraska has, for the last 18 months, exhibited a popular doctored photo of President Obama smoking instead of the required official portrait. I am going to sidestep the issues of the intention of this "joke" and suspicions of racism -- it's above my paygrade. However, I can't help but resent the fact that the mere appearance of a cigarette in one's mouth is now a smear, an insult, a defamation.

That aside, I do have to admit that during the general election, I was surprised that Obama's (former) smoking habit was not more of an issue -- being a cynic, I was constantly awaiting some talking head or other to declare Obama's allegiance to Big Tobacco (In actuality, it's been a rough year and a half for the tobacco industry ever since the FDA took over the regulation of tobacco products).

What's more, Obama has admitted as recently as February that he still sneaks the occasional puff, to little fanfare. And actually, I would argue that his infrequent lapses may in fact be a boon for our nation. You've probably noticed that smokers are generally allowed more breaks on the clock than others -- we have the perfect excuse, after all.

Considering that Obama has the most stressful and time-consuming job imaginable, a smoke break every once in a while may well help him slow down and meditate on his work. Beyond the simple satisfaction of addiction-fulfillment, smoking allows you to pause and reflect in our otherwise busy lives. We should be grateful for that.

Smoking on the Cheap: A Review

I've been smoking the same brand for 9 years: Camel Lights. They're $9.50 at my cornerstore, so I spend about $50-60 on cigarettes every week. I've thought about switching brands, try to save some cash, but I just can't bring myself to do it. But what if I had to smoke on the cheap? I wanted to explore the options that would be available to me. All ratings factor in the dynamic between quality and price.

The first trial was USA Gold "Full Flavors." USA Golds are a discount cigarette brand, usually sold for a couple bucks cheaper than the standard Marlboros and Camels, so you're still looking at about $7 dollars a pack in the New York metropolitan area. USA Golds are manufactured by "Commonwealth Brands," a quiet company that's been on the rise ever since the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, mainly because of their focus on discount cigarettes.


The first thing you notice when lighting up is the bitterness of the smoke. It's the kind of bitterness that cleanses the palate; not entirely unpleasant. While the quality gap between these and the premium brands is noticeable, it isn't completely distracting. With a little imagination, you can picture these as stale Marlboro Reds. Not ideal, but workable. However, I would predict that longterm consumption of USA Golds will lead to a nasty smoker's cough.

Rating: 12 cigarettes out of twenty.

My next adventure was with Criss Cross tobacco. Now, Criss Cross is an interesting animal because it is marketed as pipe tobacco. Pipe tobacco smoke is extremely unpleasant to inhale, not unlike cigars -- at the very least, you'll feel nauseous. However, the rumor is that although Criss Cross is virtually the same as other rolling tobaccos, they market it as pipe tobacco to avoid paying certain taxes. And it certainly is cheap -- a 16 ounce bag roughly costs $15 (for comparison, the bags of rolling tobacco that you find in bodegas are around 1.3 ounces for $7-9), making Criss Cross one of the cheapest cigarettes options out there.


When smoking Criss Cross, it's hard to silence that little voice in the back of your head whispering, "You shouldn't be smoking this." And while I did not feel nauseous, I wasn't exactly enjoying myself. Criss Cross is very sweet but it's the kind of sweetness that permeates your entire mouth and throat, reminiscent of a sugar substitute. Simultaneously, the tobacco is quite harsh; when it hit the back of my throat I felt like I had been punched in the neck. I couldn't even bring myself to smoke the whole thing.

A bit of research online reveals multiple complaints of human hair found in bags of Criss Cross; I think I could taste it. I'm going to avoid Criss Cross in the future, but it's hard to complain about the price tag.

Rating: 7 cigarettes out of twenty (Again, this rating is a reflection of the ratio of price to quality. Under normal circumstances, I'd give it about a 3.)

To truly explore all low-cost options, I forced myself to scavenge tobacco. Now, at first I was tempted to use my own filled ash tray, but that wouldn't be legit. Instead, I collected a number of cigarette butts off of the street. I tried to find butts with at least a portion of tobacco untouched by flame -- despite Lucky Strike's claim "toasted" tobacco isn't exactly pleasant. After collecting enough, I rolled up a cigarette and gave it a go.


Now, it's hard to be objective about this method, if only because of its novelty for me. Combining tobacco from four different brands (Marlboro, Parliament, Newport and Camel) is an adventure in and of itself, and when this tobacco was found on the street -- well! I have to say, however, that I was pleasantly surprised. Luckily, the butts I found weren't particularly old so I didn't notice any staleness. And while I'm not usually a fan of menthol, having just a hint of it was as pleasant as a spring breeze.

Obviously, there are many variables with this method -- the types of cigarettes found, their freshness, the amount of unspoiled tobacco in each -- and I imagine that over time, one would get quite fed up with the collecting and processing of discarded butts. Given all of this, however, I still enjoyed the cig immensely.

Rating: 15 cigarettes out of twenty.

Not Smoking...The Divine Pain

First off, I'd like to share the wonderful Disney cartoon above, made in 1951. It stars Goofy and is -- at least ostensibly -- an anti-smoking cartoon, although personally I have my doubts. The foibles of smoking are so loveably recreated that I can't escape the suspicion that the entire creative team was puffing as they drew. Goofy attempts to quit, but (spoiler alert!) just can't bring himself to do it.

His failed attempts to procure tobacco while he is "nic-fitting" (I don't think I've used that phrase since high school) will be instantly relatable to smokers. What is glossed over, however, is the perverse enjoyment that smokers (can) receive from just such a predicament.

We have all had to go for stretches of time without smoking; some enjoyable, some not so much. The knowledge that you will be sans nicotine for 6+ hours during an uncomfortable flight is enough to spawn a minor panic attack, but holding off on a smoke break during a family get-together for Easter (don't want to explain to your little nephew what you're doing) can be exquisite torture.

Holding off on temptation, teasing yourself with the possibility of succumbing, excites you. Even now as I write, my throat is itching, truly itching, for tobacco smoke. The knowledge that I will sate my desire momentarily makes that itching pleasurable, even erotic.

The pay-off will be, and always has been, immensibly enjoyable. But it's the waiting, the itching, the foreplay, that makes it oh-so-much better.

The Intimacy of Smokers, Then and Now

In my last couple posts, I've talked about the role cigarettes played in creating communities in my life. For those of us who started young, who stole cigarettes from parents and skulked in convenience store parking lots, a smoking buddy was a partner in crime. The fact that we were engaging in taboo behavior(as mild as it was) only brought us closer together.

Once you get a bit older, that intimacy starts to fade. You get a driver's license, cigarettes are easier to acquire, finding a time and place to smoke no longer requires cunning and intricate planning. What was once a social activity by necessity now becomes solitary.

This might be starting to change. In the last ten years, smoking has been banned from restaurants and bars, cigarettes are twice as expensive as when I started, and there are murmurs of banning smoking from public spaces. Smoking has become a moral issue and subsequently smokers are ostracized. Life has become harder for smokers, and it's resurrecting the ghosts of my youth.

Not long ago I visited the town where I grew up, the tony suburb of Princeton, New Jersey. Armed with cigarettes but with neither matches nor a lighter, I was at the mercy of my fellow Princetonians. Walking block after block in downtown, I was dismayed to realize that smoking was simply out of fashion here.

After twenty minutes, I finally found a fellow smoker. He lent me his lighter and moved on but, just briefly, I felt that old commiseration once again.

A Smoker Reminisces, Part Two

Smoking didn't become a habit(read: addiction) for me until summer camp, age 16. It was one of those progressive arts camps for teenagers, where they make a point of treating you like a college student; plenty of freedom and free time. The counselors themselves were all college kids who seemed reluctant to rain on our pheromone parade -- they allowed us to enjoy our summer nights and loves unimpeded. This hands-off approach extended to tobacco use; groups of us would walk to the "wall" multiple times a day to smoke. We would talk about the Beats and listen to Dylan and Lou Reed. Cigarettes became romantic, became a part of the artistic and literary mythology we were sucking down. Non-smokers just didn't get Ginsberg and Kerouac the way we did. Those kids weren't part of the lifestyle.

That idea -- that smoking was a test of character, a litmus test -- was brought back from camp and integrated into my high school life. Just as there were cliques for theater kids and nerds and jocks, there was the smoking clique.

Like any clique we became a tight-knit group, providing support and friendship for our members. The social bonds formed by our shared habit created a community in which we felt comfortable. Finally, us cynics and loners weren't so alone -- and maybe not as cynical.

I guess what I'm getting at is that cigarettes, at more than one stage in my life, gave me a home.

A Smoker Reminisces, Part One

I started smoking at the age of thirteen, but not very seriously. At the time, I wanted to run with the fast crowd, which entailed smoking, drinking, marijuana, petty vandalism and lying about sexual exploits. When school was let out each day, a group of us would saunter off school property just far enough so that we could legally smoke cigarettes within eyesight of the crowded school buses and the teachers walking to their cars. It was more about posturing than anything else. Marlboro Reds were my smoke of choice, if only because they were considered the harshest and therefore the coolest. We would chain-smoke as much as possible before heading off to detention, spraying ourselves with cologne in the parking lot in a vain attempt to cover up the odor.

At that age and level of inexperience, cigarettes would still give us a buzz. We would feel light-headed and giddy -- an effect of deprivation of oxygen to the brain coupled with the illicit thrill of rebellion. We were novices, glorious and wonderful. Embarrassing as it is to admit, me and a couple other thrill-seekers once even tried smoking dip. We flattened one half of a soda can and poked holes in it to form a makeshift pipe and took turns inhaling the noxious fumes of burning Skoal. I felt high for twenty minutes before vomiting in the school courtyard.

For all the adolescent stupidity and social one-upmanship of middle school, I will remember it fondly as my first rebellion, my first independence. That old tobacco smoke, acrid and sweet, still hangs in the air.

Smoke!

The Stigma of Smoking

At some point in recent history, smoking was moralized; it became a character flaw to smoke. Rather than allow smokers to weigh the costs and benefits of smoking and make a rational decision, societal forces have instead chosen to make social pariahs out of smokers, attempting to shame them out of their habit. This is Sociology 101: to effect certain behaviors on a societal level, one must produce shame in those who practice said behaviors. One produces shame by creating the illusion that said behaviors reflect on the moral (and subsequently, social) value of an individual. Societies have used shame as a force for socialization from time immemorial -- mostly because it's highly effective(for a brief introduction, I recommend Norbert Elias' work).

You can witness the shaming of smokers everyday. The smoking bans in restaurants, bars and other public buildings work to segregate and subsequently ostracize smokers. Common phrases like, "Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray," attempt to make smokers feel unattractive and undesirable. And then, of course, there are tasteful ads like these:

Yup - if you smoke, you're a baby-killer.

To deny smokers their own humanity in this way is lazy, insulting and despicable.

I, for one, will not be bullied into quitting. Anyway, social stigmas become me.

The Lighter Side of Nicotine

When one smokes a cigarette, chemicals stampede through the brain: dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, vasopressin, arginine, beta-endorphin. Some, like dopamine, stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. Others, like acetylcholine and norepinephrine, enhance alertness. Pain and anxiety are reduced by beta-endorphin. Nicotine also cause the brain to release glutamate, a chemical tied to memory. This potent chemical cocktail alleviates the side effects of Alzheimer's and Tourette's. On top of all this, a group of chemical compounds found in tobacco smoke act as MAO Inhibitors. That's right; tobacco smoke is an anti-depressant.

Of course, we're all familiar with the negative side effects of smoking. Emphysema, cancer, blah blah. But recently, a friend of mine in his early 20s had his annual check-up with his doctor. After confirming that, yes, he was still smoking, my friend resigned himself to the requisite doctor lecture. Surprisingly, the doctor replied, "Don't bother quitting; by the time you get cancer, they'll have a cure for it."

Sure, it's silly of me to place faith in that, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic right now - I just had a cigarette.

Cigarettes don't kill people, Wendy's kills people.

Back in 2005, I was travelling across the country with my brother. Eschewing food tourism, we settled for the most convenient options which ended up being a lot of fast food. For those who haven't taken a road trip; in a fast food restaurant off of the freeway, hundreds of miles from anywhere remotely familiar, is where existential despair and physical disgust meet in horrible and orgiastic exultation.

In North Carolina, we stopped at a Wendy's. A gust of stale air, reeking of boiling vegetable oil and Lysol, met us as we entered. After ordering, we found a table and waited. Finding an ashtray amongst the paper napkins and salt shakers was a revelation: "Good Lord, we can smoke in here?" It was the veritable dawn of the Sabbath at the end of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain.". The cigarettes we quickly lit exuded a most glorious smoke that formed a barrier between us and all the evil that surrounded. The malaise, the sickening odor, the acne-causing, oil-soaked air were all gone. Only the bittersweet tobacco smoke remained. We ate half of a lukewarm burger and left.

Today, smoking is banned in all North Carolina bars and restaurants. That life-saving ashtray in Wendy's has long since disappeared. There is no protection from the smell of oil, or from the despair.

Smoking tobacco suppresses the appetite. The same appetite that is responsible for our obesity epidemic. The same epidemic that has higher healthcare costs than smoking.

Let's stop the despair. Let's stop obesity. Let's have a cigarette.

A Love Letter

Dear Tobacco,

I know that you haven't had the easiest time recently, and I know that sometimes it must be hard to go on. You must be feeling that you've been singled out, been made a scapegoat. I am writing to let you know that I have never believed the lies they tell about you. This bullshit consensus about your effects is hardly backed up by the medical literature; you and I both know that. Meanwhile, exorbitant taxes have out-priced you for anyone below a certain income level. It's a clear case of economic discrimination - like the poll tax, except not as racist(or is it...?)

You have never been anything but a good friend to me. You celebrated the good times with me and were there to cheer me up during the bad. You helped me escape innumerable awkward situations and parties. What's more, without you I wouldn't have made so many great friends. For instance, when Andrew and I first met, our clandestine smoke breaks during free period brought us together and forged an invaluable friendship.

I know that Mike Bloomberg doesn't want us to see each other anymore, but fuck him. He can't keep true love down.

Take heart, Tobacco -- you have not been forgotten. There are still over a billion of us in the world. And the next time you start feeling depressed, ask Alcohol to tell you about Prohibition.

Love, Luke