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Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs

In Mudcat MIDIs:
My Last Cigarette


Snuffy UK 06 Jan 00 - 07:23 PM
Willie-O 06 Jan 00 - 08:04 PM
johnp 07 Jan 00 - 03:54 AM
Kernow John 07 Jan 00 - 07:35 AM
Tony Burns 07 Jan 00 - 08:17 AM
Kernow John 07 Jan 00 - 08:38 AM
Keith 07 Jan 00 - 08:52 AM
dick greenhaus 07 Jan 00 - 09:51 AM
Allan S. 07 Jan 00 - 09:59 AM
AndyG 07 Jan 00 - 12:00 PM
Alfie 07 Jan 00 - 01:07 PM
Gene 07 Jan 00 - 01:39 PM
Snuffy 07 Jan 00 - 02:58 PM
Snuffy 07 Jan 00 - 03:02 PM
Arkie 07 Jan 00 - 03:59 PM
Gene 07 Jan 00 - 04:27 PM
ursa 07 Jan 00 - 05:35 PM
lamarca 07 Jan 00 - 05:43 PM
Susanne (skw) 07 Jan 00 - 06:23 PM
Allan S, 07 Jan 00 - 07:48 PM
Alan of Australia 07 Jan 00 - 10:50 PM
Tony Burns 07 Jan 00 - 11:46 PM
Snuffy 08 Jan 00 - 06:27 AM
longhair 08 Jan 00 - 06:42 AM
Chris/Darwin 08 Jan 00 - 07:09 AM
Tony Burns 08 Jan 00 - 11:49 AM
dick greenhaus 08 Jan 00 - 11:51 AM
Frank Hamilton 08 Jan 00 - 02:59 PM
longhair 08 Jan 00 - 04:53 PM
clare s 08 Jan 00 - 04:58 PM
Snuffy 08 Jan 00 - 06:07 PM
clare s 08 Jan 00 - 06:27 PM
Susanne (skw) 08 Jan 00 - 07:34 PM
Jo Taylor 08 Jan 00 - 08:53 PM
Art Thieme 08 Jan 00 - 11:50 PM
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Bert 11 Jan 00 - 10:11 AM
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Subject: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Snuffy UK
Date: 06 Jan 00 - 07:23 PM

Anybody know any good anti-smoking songs? Our gang tried to create some but we could only come up with two choruses and no verses - please feel free to add or amend. A collaborative song would be great.

1. Tune : South Australia

Puff away you superkings
Puff away, drag way
Emphysema's all it brings
Cancer and heart failure.

2. Tune :Fiddlers Green

Farewell to my Marlboros and Rothmans
No more with a cig I'll be seen
I'm giving up smoking
You may think I'm joking
But you'll never see me with Rizlas green

[Rizla is the major UK brand of papers for hand-rolled cigarettes. I don't know if they're available anywhere else]

[Some song titles in this thread have been converted to links by a Mudelf.]


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Willie-O
Date: 06 Jan 00 - 08:04 PM

On top of Old Smoke-Free?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: johnp
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 03:54 AM

There was a song [My Last Cigarette] on the wireless circa 1961 I think sung by Miriam Karlin. I remember bits....

Tobacco, tobacco, I hate you I do.
Like Venus I'd look if it wasn't for you;
But I'll give up the habit; I will even yet
When I've had just one more cigarette.

I'll fling the packet away, away.
Fifty times in a week I say
Fling the packet away, away,
When I've had just one more cigarette.

Under my eyes are a couple of bags.
I blame it all on to a packet of fags,
But I'll give up...etc.

There was much choking and painful coughing.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Kernow John
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 07:35 AM

Snuffy
The song JohnP mentions was called My Last Cigarette and was written by Sidney Carter it was Venus or Tarzan according to the singer.
I've got it around somewhere and will type it up later.
Regards Baz


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Subject: Lyr Add: CANCER AND HEART FAILURE
From: Tony Burns
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 08:17 AM

Great idea Snuffy UK. Here's an offering.

Cancer and Heart Failure
Chorus - Snuffy UK
Verses - Tony Burns

Tune : South Australia

Puff away you superkings
Puff away, drag away
Emphysema's all it brings
Cancer and heart failure.

I started smoking to look cool
Now I'm just a wheezing fool

I'm a great guy you can tell
If you can get past the smell

Even though I cough and gag
I just light another fag

I wake each morn at 3:15
Go downstairs for some nicotine


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Subject: Lyr Add: MY LAST CIGARETTE (Sheila Hancock)^^
From: Kernow John
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 08:38 AM

MY LAST CIGARETTE
Sydney Carter/Sheila Hancock

[A]Tobacco, Tobacco I [D]hate you I do
Like [E] Tarzan I'd look if it [A]wasn't for you
But I'll give up the habit I[D]will even yet
When I've [E]had just one more cigar[A]ette.[E7]
It[A]wasn't the whisky, it [E]wasn't the wine
That [D]made such a wreck of this [A]body of mine
But I'll give up the habit I [E]will even yet
When I've had just one more cigar[A]ette.

Under my eyes are a couple of bags
I blame it all on to a packet of fags
But I'll give up the habit I will even yet
When I've had just one more cigarette
My teeth are all yellow and so is my tongue
I breathe through a kipper I call it a lung
But I'll give up the habit I will even yet
When I've had just one more cigarette

Nail in my coffin so pale and so thin
I am a fool to keep driving you in
You say that you'll kill me how much do you bet
When I've had just one more cigarette
I'll fling the packet away, away
Fifty times in a week I say
Fling the packet away away
When I've had just one more cigarette.

I've sent the tune to Alan of Oz for Mudcat Midi click here
Regards Baz


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Keith
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 08:52 AM

If you can find it, look for an album from 1975 by Freeman and Lange, called Freeman and Lange. It's a Flying Fish recording #011. I have it on vinyl, but my turntable doesn't work, so I can't get all the lyrics to the song, Non-smokers Liberation Front Anthem by Don Lange. It's a great song--very funny. I just remember one line that comes near the end of the song:

Before your next nico-fit
Take a stick of dried beef
You can chew it; you can suck it
And it won't stain your teeth

Freeman and Lange were an excellent duo and great songwriters and guitarists. They were an Iowa group based around Iowa City. I don't have any idea what happened to them. For some reason, I think Lange moved to Chicago.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 09:51 AM

The two country classics on the subject are Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette (Merle Travis) and Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild Wild Women. I don't have the lyrics of either ready to hand, but I'll check 'em out when I get a chance.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Allan S.
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 09:59 AM

What about "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette" 1947 by Merle Travis Sung by Tex Williams, Phil Harris. I think the chorus goes something like "smoke smoke smoke that cigarette, and if you smoke yourself to death Tell Saint Peter at the golden gate he'll just have to wait I just got to have another cigarette" Also "Tobacco is but an Indian Weed" Very old about 1700's I have it on an old record sung by Ray Bougaslovski Who worked with Theo Bickel


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: AndyG
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 12:00 PM

You could look at Harry Rag by Ray Davies.

Point of information:
Rizla cigarette papers are actually French. The name is a french pun, it's printed on the packet as;
RIZLA +. (where "+" represents a large cross)
The papers were originally made in the town of Riz La Croix, (or something similar). Funny eh?

AndyG


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE!^^^
From: Alfie
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 01:07 PM

SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE!
(Merle Travis)

cho: Smoke! Smoke! Smoke that cigarette!
Puff, Puff, Puff and if you smoke yourself to death
Tell Saint Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you've just got to have another cigarette.

Now I'm a feller with a heart of gold,
And the ways of a gentleman, I've been told,
The kind of a guy that wouldn't even harm a flea--
But if me and a certain character met,
The guy that invented the cigarette,
I'd murder that son of a gun in the first degree--
Not 'cause I don't smoke myself,
And I don't reckon they'll harm your health
I've smoked all my life and ain't dead yet
But nicotine slaves are all the same,
At a pettin' party or a poker game,
Everything must stop while they smoke that cigarette.

In a game of chance the other night
Old Dame Fortune was a-doin' me right,
The Kings and Queens just kept on comin' around--
I played 'em hard and bet 'em high,
But my bluff didn't work on a certain guy,
He kept on raisin' and layin' the money down
He'd raise me and I'd raise him,
I sweated blood gotta sink or swim,
He finally called and didn't raise the bet--
I said "Aces full, pal,--how 'bout you?"
He said "I'll tell you in a minute or two,
Right now I've just got to have a cigarette."

The other night I had a date
With the cutest little girl in the forty eight states
A high-bred, uptown, fancy little dame--
She said she loved me and it seemed to me
That things were 'bout like they oughta be,
So hand in hand we strolled down lover's lane--
She was oh, so far from a cake of ice,
Our smoochin' party was a-goin nice,
So help me Hannah, I think I'd a been there yet--
But I give her a kiss and a little squeeze
And she said "Tex excuse me please,
I've just got to have another cigarette.


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Subject: Lyr Add: CIGAREETES WHUSKY AND WILD WILD WOMEN
From: Gene
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 01:39 PM

CIGAREETES, WHUSKY AND WILD, WILD WOMEN
Words and music by Tim Spencer
Recorded by The Sons Of The Pioneers, 1947.

CHORUS: [G] Cigareetes and whusky and [C] wild, wild [G] Women,
They'll drive you crazy; they'll [A] drive you in-[D] sane. [A] [D]
Ciga-[G] reetes and whusky and [C] wild, wild [G] women,
They'll drive you crazy; they'll [D] drive you in-[G] sane.

[G] Once I was happy and [C] had a good [G] wife.
I had enough money to [A] last me for [D] life. [A] [D]
I [G] met with a gal and we [C] went on a [G] spree.
She started me smokin' and [D] drinkin' whus-[G] ky. CHORUS

Now I am feeble and broken with age.
The lines on my face make a well-written page.
I'm leavin' this message, how sad but how true
On women and whusky and what they can do. CHORUS

Write on the cross at the head of my grave:
"For women and whusky here lies a poor slave.
Take warning, dear stranger; take warning, dear friend."
Then write in big letters these words at the end: CHORUS


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 02:58 PM

Thank you, one and all, for your contributions so far. That should give me something to be going on with.
I remember hearing both 'My Last Cigarette' and 'Cigareetes and Whusky and Wild, Wild Women' many years ago, but I had forgotten most of the words. Thanks again.

Snuffy


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 03:02 PM

Tony - I didn't forget you. I like it! Have you got any more
What about changing the refrain to something like this:

I started smoking to look cool
Puff away, drag away
Now I'm just a wheezing fool
Smokin's gonna nail ya.

Wassail, Snuffy


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Arkie
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 03:59 PM

When Travis wrote Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette), he did not think of it as an anti-smoking song. He did write another version [Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (But Not Around Me)] at the request of his friend, Grandpa Jones, which was for non-smokers. Don't know if I can find a copy, but will give it a shot. Will not consider it an insult if someone beats me to it. Travis did have a way with words, with music, and with the guitar. and could draw a pretty good picture too. Supposedly a female member of his band claims to be the inspiration for the song. Claimed Trav made a move on her and she stalled by lighting up a cigarette.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Gene
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 04:27 PM

Jerry Reed recorded a KILLER of a SMOKING SONG... [Another Puff]

haven't played it in ages...will look for it!


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: ursa
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 05:35 PM

Great rock song- "Cigarette" by a band called the Clark's. Sorry, don't have the lyrics.


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKING SPIRITUALIZED^^^
From: lamarca
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 05:43 PM

There's an old English song (from the 1600's?) called "Smoking Spiritualized" - Larry Hanks recorded it on "Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail"

Smoking Spiritualized

Tobacco's but an Indian weed,
Grows green at morn, cut down at eve.
It shows our decay;
We are but clay;
Think of this, when you smoke tobacco.

The pipe that is so lily-white,
Wherein so many take delight,
Gone with a touch;
Man's life is such;
Think on this, when you smoke tobacco.

The pipe that is so foul within,
Shews how the soul is stained with sin;
It doth require
The purging fire.
Think on this, when you smoke tobacco.

The ashes that are left behind,
Do serve to put us all in mind,
That unto dust,
Return we must.
Think on this, when you smoke tobacco.

The smoke that doth so high ascend,
Shews that our life must have an end;
The vapour's gone;
Man's life is done.
Think on this, when you smoke tobacco.


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKER'S SONG^^
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 06:23 PM

Maybe this'll cure a few people. If you ever heard Hamish Imlach sing it with his dreadful cough, you know why you've given up smoking!
BTW, I have an old '78 recording of 'Cigarettes and Whisky' where the author's name is given as Red Ingle. - Susanne

SMOKERS SONG
(Peter Ross / Hamish Imlach)

Now I'm a social outcast
A modern-day refugee
Joy turns to gloom when I walk into a room
They all turn their back upon me
I'm not a thug or a mugger
I've not murdered anyone yet
But you would think I was Charles bloody Manson
When I light up a cigarette

Some folk get their kicks from alcohol
Some stuff their nose with cocaine
Some folk like knocking old women about
Some like tae batter their weans
There's masochists, sadists or rapists
Folk that like dressing in drag
I'm no' like them, that's no' my game
Gimme peace just to light one more fag

You can snuff it doing too much exercise
You can snuff it not doing enough
You can snuff it by eating too little
You know, you can snuff it eating too much
You can snuff it staying out late at night
You can snuff it lying in your bed
So my way of snuffing is to keep right on puffing
It's on my own bloody head

Spare a thought for all the smokers
Doing their bit for the Crown
Remember when a smoker lights up
He's keeping your income tax down

Yes he is
He's keeping your income tax down


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Allan S,
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 07:48 PM

Red Ingle had a band called Red Ingle and his natural Seven Did stuff like Spike jones with bells whistles and other sounds too fierce to mention


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 10:50 PM

G'day,
The tune to "My Last Cigarette" posted by Baz (see above) is now at the Mudcat MIDI site
.

Cheers,
Alan


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Tony Burns
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 11:46 PM

Hi Snuffy UK,

I like the Cancer and heart failute line and so will suggest a refrain of:

I started smoking to look cool
Puff away, drag away
Now I'm just a wheezing fool
Cancer and Heart Failure

Hmmm... "Smokin's gonna nail ya" is good too. (Maybe and improvement.) Have to get that "Cancer and heart failure" into a verse somewhere. Maybe two separate verses. (I have to stop thinking out loud. I'll stop now.)

More verses? The first few were easy. You could almost make this a zipper song and let folks jump in.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 06:27 AM

Tony Burns - I think a zipper is a great idea. Cancer and heart failure is in the chorus anyway - after every verse

AndyG - Thanks for the Harry Rag song and the info on Rizla+ - you set me off surfing and I found the Rizla website. Apparently, Pierre Lacroix started selling paper in 1532 and they introduced rice ("riz" in French) paper in 1865.

I also found a page on Cockney rhyming slang and according to them Harry Wragg was a jockey famous enough to become the rhyming slang for "fag" [US readers - in UK English fag merely means cigarette]


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: longhair
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 06:42 AM

Sheesh!! Can't even come here w/o anti-smoking stuff! :^)


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Chris/Darwin
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 07:09 AM

Gene

There was one more verse in the original "Cigareettes and Whusky", as follows:

Cigareettes is a blot on the whole human race
A man is a monkey with one in his face
Here's my definition, believe me, dear brother
A fool on one end, and a fire on t'other

CHORUS

I also sing a couple of extra verses about women and whisky that go over just as well, but that is another thread...

Regards
Chris


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Tony Burns
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 11:49 AM

Of course you are right Snuffy. The terms chorus and refrain still get twisted in my head. Still, a consistancy between the chorus and refrain will make it easier for others to pick up.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 11:51 AM

Hi- The words to Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette; Cigarettes and Whiskey; and Tobacco's But an Indian Weed are all in DigiTrad. A little searching can save a lot of typing.

Incidentally, the original verse ending to Tobacco's But an Indian Weed was "Think on this when you drink tobacco"--a reference to what non-smokers perceived was being done with the smoke of the burning weed.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 02:59 PM

Actually, there are not too many anti-smoking songs. Tobacco's But An Indian Weed is not quite about the perils of smoking and Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette is more about a complaint of someone stalling in a card game. I personally would love to see more anti-smoking songs. Particularly about those who pollute other's air space.

Frank


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: longhair
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 04:53 PM

Well, if we're worring about polluting other's air space, we also need songs like "Damn that Perfume You're Wearing could make a Corpse Cry", or "That Colonge Smells like it could take the Hair off an Elephant". What pollutes others air, all depends on which side of the isle your standing. No flame intended, but it's funny to me that some of the same people bitching about smoke in their air space, wear some of the loudest smelling stuff on the face of the earth.. Sorry, had to say it. Now y'all continue what is a fine thread...


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: clare s
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 04:58 PM

How about some pro (or at least not anti) smoking songs to stop us poor addicts feeling worse than we already are made to?

Happy new year anti-smoking fascist people...


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 06:07 PM

Clare S and longhair - send 'em in if you've got 'em

I can sympathise with you - I'm a tobacco addict myself - but I shove it up my nose, that's why I'm snuffy


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: clare s
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 06:27 PM

We don't bother with songs, we just enjoy smoking and pity the overtly self rightious positions of the rest of you - and we don't care if we might die a few years earlier. Our years won't have been quite as boring as yours

Clare


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 07:34 PM

Clare - I'm not anti-smoking as such, I just can't understand how people can do that to themselves and I sometimes ask my mother not to smoke in my house because the smoke gives me a headache. Apart from that, I'm utterly tolerant, being a lifelong non-smoker. Anyway, the SMOKERS SONG I posted above should be your song! Enjoy your next cigarette! :-) - Susanne


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 08:53 PM

Andy G -
Riz = papers originally made of rice paper
La Croix = the name of the family whose business made them.
Can't buy Rizla licquorice papers in France though...
Jo


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Subject: Lyr Add: DADDY SMOKED HIS LIFE AWAY^^
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Jan 00 - 11:50 PM

My old and good friend, a fine musician who now makes his living selling teeth, BRIAN GILL, wrote this remarkable song in 1986. Back then it was being used by The American Cancer Society.

Personally: After 50 years of smoking several packs a day, I had just watched my aunt die a terrible and demeaning, broken death because of her addiction to cigarettes. Emphysema had deprived her brain of oxygen to the extent that she exhibited the many symptoms of advanced Alzheimer's disease---all the while gasping for breath. On her deathbed, she constantly asked me to give her another cigarette.
Art Thieme

words and music
Brian Gill @ 1986

DADDY SMOKED HIS LIFE AWAY

What more can I do,
What more can I say
For 30 years now it's been
Going on the same old way,
Up in the morningYou're looking for a morning light
'Cause you're a life time smoking man.

CHORUS:One by one
They're dragging you down,
One by one,
They're putting you in the ground,
One by one,
They're gonna bring about the day,
When momma tells her children
Daddy smoked his life away.

It's all a corporate scam,
It's the drug of the times
They're killing people right and left
While the profit margin's doing fine,
It's a personal gift
From the angel of death,
They're laughing all the way to the bank
While they're stealing your precious breath.

BRIDGE:Nicotine stains on your fingers and nails
Coughing like you're gonna die,
When you gonna wake up?
When you gonna open your eyes?

There's a reason for living,
There's a reason for love,
Your wife and your family
The good lord above,
Poppa, we love you
More than you'll ever know.
Sometimes it's hard to say,
Sometimes it's even harder to show.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Jan 00 - 10:30 PM

I just realized that I wasn't very clear in the previous post. I've never smoked at all---except for about 5 years of smoking a pipe. It was my aunt who smokes packs a day for 50 years----not me.

Art


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Bert
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 10:11 AM

There's David Perry's "Mr Nicotine Man" to the tune of Mr. Tambourine Man. I've got it somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.

Bert.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Tony Burns
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 12:44 PM

Clare, Is the description of Art's aunt what you mean by having a somewhat shorter non-boring life?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Blackcat2
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 02:55 PM

I was wondering as I was wandering down this thread if someone would finally object to it's content. I didn't think it be as heated a objection as it received. I remember as a boy i used to take interesting show & tell items to school from my mom's office - she workd for the American Lung assoc. and that was jsut after they moved from a focus on Tuberculosis to lung cancer/smoking.

There's nothing like sharing a glass encased biopsy of a healthy lung nest of a 2 park a day for 30 years lung.

Smokers have a right to smoke. They have a right to like it, to feel proud, superior, etc. (I'm not saying all smokers do - most of my friends that smoke aren't happy they do) BUT the arrogance of statements such as "and we don't care if we might die a few years earlier. Our years won't have been quite as boring as yours." is laughable!

Gee just look at all those people out their living boring lives because they don't smoke! Boy i'll tell you, a statement like that makes Madison Avenue perk right up!

pax yall


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: clare s
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 04:53 PM

Blackcat2,

You'll have to excuse me the comment that you quoted - I had a dreadful weekend, spent most of it hating the world and managed to offend several people here...

Now that I've calmed down, I have to say that us smokers don't feel superior, we are just sick and tired of being judged for a lifestyle choice that we've made. As lifestyle choices go, it may not be the most sensible in the world, but it's our choice.

I can understand the passive smoking arguement and try my best to be considerate in that way - given the way things are going it will soon become impossible for me to inadvertently cause you to inhale my smoke. That is fine by me; I'm starting to enjoy having to go outside for a smoke in social situations - it's an excellent excuse to avoid people you don't like.

What I find difficult to understand is the extent to which us smokers are despised and vilified.

We aren't lepers, we simply enjoy a habit for which you don't understand our rationale. Of course smoking may kill me, but so might lots of other activities. I enjoy it, am well aware of the risks, and have made my choice. Please respect that and don't give me songs, stories or personal recollections as to why my choice is wrong.

I wonder what response I'd get if I started a thread on being overweight, eating too much and not taking any exercise. I imagine the responses would be somewhat different.

Clare


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 05:07 PM

Clare, I can see you are an optimist, always seeing a bright side. One more bright thought: At least smokers don't lose control of their cars, their ships or themselves and 'inadvertently' kill other people more directly than any passive smoking can. (I don't hate alcoholics, but I DO hate alcohol in unhealthy quantities.) - Susanne


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Blackcat2
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 06:20 PM

Hi Claire

I understand you very much. As you may have noticed my posting mentioned something about friends who are smokers. If I actually hate yall and though yall were stuck-up or something I wouldn't have anything to do with yall. I was reacting to your quote (hence me quoting it) but like I said, I found it funny. You are welcome to your choices in the world as am I. I just find it interesting how people chose to express themselves and it sure sounded like a cig. advert.

take care and may you never suffer from your choice to smoke.

pax yall


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: clare s
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 06:34 PM

Peace to you too, Blackcat - btw, my name has no i


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 07:49 PM

C'mon Clare,(oops, Clare S) are you trying to tell me that you actually got on the wrong side of someone recently? Impossible!

Rick (laughing maniacally)


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Tony Burns
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 08:03 PM

Those who are offended or feel picked on should note that the topic of this thread is anti-smoking not anti-smoker. As a reformed smoker I know both sides of this argument only too well. I will continue to sing anti-smoking songs in the hope that it will discourage some from taking up this habit.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 10:17 PM

People, bear with me while I mix a few metaphors and ideas here. Maybe I can get 'em straight in my own head as I write 'em out for you....

That same aunt, my mother's twin sister, all the while she was asking me for a cigarette whenever we'd see her in the nursing home as she lay dying, would also call quite often at 3:oo AM or 4:00 AM----awaken me out of deep sleep---and demand for the next half hour that I bring her a cyanide pill. It was hell to see someone you love hurting, addicted and completely out of control of her own life.

But I'd like to try to tie even this sadness to something musical---an idea I used in the schools around Chicago trying to make traditional songs relevant to students who were striving to make sense of modern dilemmas. Songs about other hard times of other people often could be made to shed light on recent happenings.

Being sure that this once gracious woman was well cared for opened my eyes to the real meaning between the lines of the western song "Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie". The dying cowboy asks his pals to please not bury him out on the prairie. They tell him whatever they need to tell him to calm him a bit----and then, when he dies, out of necessity, they do bury him out there. They even probably take his boots and rope and horse and saddle. But the real theme of the song is how hard it is in certain situations, especially at the end of one's life, to retain any semblance of control of that which is being wrested so painfully away.

"Pay no heed to the enticing words,
Of the men who own large droves and herds,
For if you do you will rue the day,
You left your home for the lone prairie."

"Oh bury me not...", but his voice failed there,
And we payed no heed to his dying prayer,
In a shallow grave just 6 X 3,
We burried him there on the lone prairie.

And the cowboys all--as they ride the range,
They mark the spot where his bones remain,
They toss rose petals all o'er his grave,
And pray to the lord that his soul be saved.

I hear that kind of striving for control from so very many smokers I know who find all kinds of interesting reasons to keep on keeping on. They even invoke the constitution and their own "pursuit of happiness".

So think about doing this and other traditional songs from the depths of history to put forth all kinds of modern attitudes and positions. Those guys who "owned the large droves and herds", might today be the tobacco billionairs who have been losing (finally) in the courts while luring people to addiction and death.

Anyhow, please don't be offended. I ain't against people who smoke. I'm against the assholes who continue to make a fortune by recruiting more people every day. And now that they're getting hurt a little here in the U.S., all of the packages of smokes are getting a warning label but it's in YOUR language.

A word to the wise...

Art Thieme


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Subject: Lyr Add: TOBACCO UNION^^
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Jan 00 - 10:22 PM

Hattie Presnell sings a song titled "Tobacco Union" on my Traditional Music of Beech Mountain, NC., Volume II. It's clearly "anti." Me? I'm neutral. I happily smoked a pack a day for fifty-three years. When I had my coronary by-pass in 1995, I decided maybe I ought to take advantage of sixteen days in a non-smoking environment (the hospital) and use that as a head start on quitting, since I figured I ought to do that before I became addicted. I miss it. I stand next to smokers in the alley snowdrifts, blissfully inhaling their exhalations. Best use of "second-hand smoke" I can think of. Anyway, here's the song Hattie gave me. She learned it from an old reprobate named "Lie-hue" who would wander into the Beech Mountain area every seven years, they told me. SING OUT! (Volume 14, No. 2) published another version of the song as it was sung by Emma Dusenberry of Mena, Arkansas (my father's home town). Randolph (Ozark Folksongs, Vol. III, p. 274)) printed a version from Mrs. Maggie Morgan of Springfield, Arkansas, observing that she had learned it in the late 1880s. Jere's Hattie's text:

Come young and old and hear me tell
How strong tobacco smokers smell,
Who loves to smoke the pipe so well,
For tobacco they will sell,
To burn and smoke in union.

They'll take the money from the poor
And carry it to their neighbor's door
And hasten it away to some man's store
To sell and buy tobacco more
To burn and smoke in union.

And then, sometimes, some church you'll view,
And there the men will sit and chew.
They will spit on the carpet floor
And it will spread a foot or more,
A-talking of the social union.

The twist so large within their mouth,
The juice runs down and stains their chin.
At this I always have to grin
And think there is but little sin
In this tobacco union.

Then there's the verse I learned from Joe Camp, a farmer I harvested for in the wheat fields near Larned, Kansas, in 1944, sung as part of "The Taters They Grow Small in Kansas:"

Oh, they chew tobacco thin in Kansas.
They chew tobacco thin in Kansas.
Oh, they chew tobacco thin
And it dribbles down their chin.
Then they lick it up agin
In Kansas.

I reckon that's "anti-poverty," too.

Sandy


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Arkie
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 12:19 AM

I don't think there was any intent in this thread to offend smokers or to express animosity toward smokers. As Tony pointed out, if there is any object of scorn, it is the habit, not the person. Merle Travis, who wrote Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette was a smoker and poked a little fun at himself. His son who had a fairly popular recording of the song and performs it in concerts is also a dedicated smoker. I am certainly glad that I never embraced the habit. Have a friend, a darn good musician, whose sister had her jaw rebuilt this past fall, a victim of years of smoking, and cancer had eaten away part of her face. I get sick when I think about it.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 02:26 AM

I have a friend who lost a part of his tongue, had a good-sized chunk taken out of his neck, and a small spot on his larynx treated with radiation, all cancerous. He stopped smoking for a few months after the second surgery, but is now back at it, full-time and full-bore. (Do you think it might be a bit addictive?) It was his choice to make, and he's made it. That's a given. We don't discuss it at all.

Sandy


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKE GOES EVERYWHERE^^
From: BobLusk
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 06:45 PM

I was very happy to see this thread. I am a former smoker- for 30 years. Spent the last 12 of them trying to quit. Now I run stop smoking groups. My father had lung cancer... I could go on for a long time. Anywho, we had a local hearing on a law about smoking in restaurants and someone suggested I write a song. It was the hardest audiance I ever played to, but it seemed to get people going - One female restaurant owner started to swing at me as I was getting "offstage".

It's a takeoff on the old country song "I've been evererywhere, but is a little slower, so you can understand the words. All the facts are accurate, near as I can tell.

Bob

SMOKE GOES EVERYWHERE
Words and music by
Bob Lusk c. 1999
Chorus:
Smoke goes everywhere, smoke goes everywhere
On your clothes and in your hair
Smoke goes everywhere
Smoke fills up the air, smoke goes everywhere

Sung:
And smoke will give you:
Mouth cancer, gum cancer, throat cancer, larynx cancer,/ esophagus cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, kidney cancer, / pancreatic cancer, cervical cancer, bladder cancer, and lun---g cancer

Chorus:
Smoke goes everywhere, smoke goes everywhere
On your clothes and in your hair
Smoke goes everywhere
Smoke fills up the air, smoke goes everywhere

Don't smoke, don't toke, no joke.

And it will give you:

Sung:
Heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, emphysema, stroke, allergies, ulcers, headaches, / coughs, colds, wheezing, asthma, / bronchitis, pneumonia and - Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Spoken:
It'll also give you wrinkles and bad hair. / It kills your cilia and it will kill you. / Also burn down your house. 50% of all fires are caused by cigarettes.

Chorus:
Smoke goes everywhere, smoke goes everywhere
On your clothes and in your hair
Smoke goes everywhere
Smoke fills up the air, smoke goes everywhere

Spoken:
There are over 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke. / We know 43 cause cancer and that 401 are toxic. / We're not sure about the other 3,556 but we don't think they are good for you. Not exactly vitamins!

Sung:
And smoke has nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, vinyl chloride, / hydrogen cyanide, methanol, ammonia, arsenic, / toluene, tolu-i-dine, naphthalene, naphthy-l-amine, /nickel, phenol, butane, pyrene,/ benzo-pyrene, urethane, acetone, cadmium, polonium, / DDT. DDDDD TTTTT DDT, DDT

Chorus:
Smoke goes everywhere, smoke goes everywhere
On your clothes and in your hair
Smoke goes everywhere
Smoke fills up the air, smoke goes everywhere
Smoke doesn't care, smoke goes everywhere.

Spoken:
And now the kids: (we haven't even talked about the kids yet)

Sung:
- spontaneous abortion - that means they won't even be born-,/fetal deaths, crib deaths, pre-term births, low birth weight, /bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections.

Spoken
It'll even make them smell bad. If the mother smokes, smoke goes in the bloodstream from the mother to the baby - kids born a smoker, doesn't stand a chance.

Chorus:
Smoke kills everyone, smoke kills everyone
Your daughter and your son,
Smoke kills everyone, smoke kills everyone
Smoke kills everyone.

Spoken ala Arlo Guthrie:
And it kills more people than alcohol, car accidents, suicides, murders and AIDS combined. / It kills more people than other drugs like heroin, crack ,marihuana, or cocaine. I mean it kills more people than all those things put together.

Chorus:
Smoke kills everyone, smoke kills everyone
The old and the young,
Smoke kills everyone.
Smoke kills everyone, smoke kills everyone

Don't smoke, Please don't smoke!
Don't smoke, Please don't smoke!
Don't smoke, Please don't smoke!
Please, please, ple-a-s-e - don't smoke!


Don't smoke around my kid in restaurants, please!


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: BobLusk
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 07:03 PM

I'm not trying to offend smoker's by the way, really - I'm really not, but you can't use the word choice when you're talking about an addicive drug. Most cigarette smokers would like to quit, but just don't see how they can do it. I work with crack addict's too and they have more trouble not smoking cigarettes.

Bob


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Jan 00 - 07:12 PM

I have been a non-smoker for some years now after several failed attempts to give up. I drink too but that is for a different argument. My wife is a smoker. I object quite strongly to all this non-smoking hypersensitivity. If you are a non-smoker a little smoke may be less than pleasant at over-close quarters. But it is nothing to the discomfort you impose on the smoker when you object to him or her smoking. Been there, done that. Please take your moral homilies and stick them somewhere else.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: BobLusk
Date: 13 Jan 00 - 05:48 PM

I disagree with the statement "If you are a non-smoker a little smoke may be less than pleasant at over-close quarters." The fact is that 2nd hand smoke experts ay that you have to be a long way away from smoke before you are not being hurt by it. If you can smell it, it's hurting you. More people die from smoking than alcohol and drugs by he way. More Columbians have been killed by American cigaretes than Americans have been killed by columbian cocaine!

Bob


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Blackcat2
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 10:43 AM

I just don't like the smell.

Though i'd rather smell cig smoke than people wearing a lot of perfume. There's a few in my office building, thankfully not in my workspace, but there's often a wall of scent in the elevator.

phew!

By the way - does anyone know of any studies done (or even local info) on smoke-free bars/pubs? even if their just a couple nights a week? It seems weird to me that so many people are non-smokers and yet so little has changed to the bar scene.

We have a pool hall in town that has two different sections - closed off and with a hall between them for non-smoking and for smoking. There is always plenty of people in the non area.

just curious...

pax yall


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,Trish
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 06:06 PM

Not really an anti-smoking song, but has anyone got the words of "Hev You Gotta Loight, Boy?" -sung by "The Singing Postman" back in the 60's - he was from the Norfolk/Suffolk border and sung other little gems such as "My Little Miss from Diss".

Also what about Allan Taylor's song "Roll on the Day" about someone dying of advanced lung disease - not sure if it's cancer, pneumoconiosis or emphysema?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: John Evans
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 06:17 PM

Mmmm,

Thanks Trish...

Trying to stop drinking - why not make me feel like a leper for smoking, while I'm at it?

You're so considerate to addicts here...

John


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Caitrin
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 06:27 PM

Cigars killed my Uncle Bill
We knew someday they'd get him
He bent down in the street to pick one up
And a bus drove by and hit him.

--Mike Cross [Tobacco Song]


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,art
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 07:02 PM

"i'll give up the habit

i will even yet

when i've had just one more cigarette"

sung by sheila hancock in the 60's [My Last Cigarette]


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Wavestar
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 07:16 PM

You know, I know this is going to get me hammered, because it seems like so many addicts will kick down on everything that goes against smoking (not all of them, I know... as with many other people, I have friends who smoke, who all wish they could quit, and who are very considerate of me...)

I don't like being around smoke. It's not only 'less than pleasant', as Richard Bridges says, it's very unpleasant - ringing headaches, raspy sore throat, etc. If I'm at a song circle in a pub, I can't sing. I realise my reaction is strong, bordering on allergic. But my point is this: YOU chose to smoke. I respect your right to do that to your own body, etc. Please, by all means, enjoy it. *I* did not chose to smoke. I conciously chose not to smoke. What makes your right to smoke supercede my right not to, and not to have the air around me filled with smoke that makes me sick? If you can tell me that, explain to me why I should not eat in restaurants, go in pubs, or even walk the streets or in the park so that I can avoid your smoke, rather than the consequences going with the ones who made the choices... then I'll stop protesting.

Seriously, though - I don't want to offend people. My question is genuine. I like smokers just as much as i like anyone else - I judge people on who they are, not what they ahve hanging out of thier mouths. Well okay, sometimes, but only if it's raw and bloody. I'm not against YOU - just your cigarettes. And I'm not telling you to quit, although I'm sure it would be more healthy, etc. You can make your own choices. I just don't want you making mine.

-Jessica, ready to duck and run.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,art
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 07:19 PM

oops

'twas miriam karlin

check out peggy seegers site


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Bugsy
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 07:38 PM

Try this one:

http://www.cantech.net.au/~carneybe/

"Don't say we didn't warn you.

Cheers

Bugsy


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Caitrin
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 07:46 PM

If you smoke or dip or chew,
you'd better get your fill,
'cause if tobacco don't get you
then anti-smokers will!


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 25 Apr 00 - 03:02 PM

My .02:
I used to smoke and would never have quit out of willpower. However, the summer I turned 17, the smoke from tobacco started making me sick. Headaches like butcher knives, nausea, cramps - I mean sick. I spent the entire summer traveling around, looking at colleges and so on, and trying one brand after another in the hopes of finding one I could stomach. Failed. Finally gave my last pack away and haven't smoked tobacco on purpose since. I have more respect for people that quit smoking out of willpower than probably any other group of individuals.
That said, it is still the case that tobacco smoke makes me ill. While I recognize any adult's right to make a personal choice to engage in fun and dangerous behavior (I am anti-seat belt and -bike helmet legislation, for instance, though I, personally, wear both and insist my children do), I also strongly feel that it is the responsibility of the adult in question to ensure that their choice remains personal. Thus you have a right to own a gun, you don't have the right to shoot me. You can wear no helmet, but don't sue me when it's my sidewalk your skull impacts. You can smoke, but produce no smoke around me. I won't even let my mom (still 5+ packs/day, over 70, and going strong) smoke in my house. She says, I drive a car, what's the diff? My answer: When I drive my car in your house you can smoke in mine.
Wish I knew a song about this - how about Live and Let Die?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 25 Apr 00 - 03:39 PM

Tobacco damages health. As long as this is an individual's choice, then this is a smoker's prerogative. But if smokers endanger the health of people who don't choose it, then it is facism.

Frank


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Subject: Lyr Add: CIGARETTES WILL SPOIL YER LIFE (Sandburg)
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 05:51 PM

CIGARETTES WILL SPOIL YER LIFE
As recorded by Carl Sandburg on "Songs of America," 1999.

Cigarettes will spoil yer life,
Ruin yer health and kill yer baby,
Poor little innocent child.
Cigarettes will spoil yer life,
Ruin yer health and kill yer baby,
Poor little innocent child.
They're so mild, they're all so mild!
All cigarettes are milder than all other cigarettes


The last line is an allusion to the cigarette advertising of the 1950s.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 01:12 PM

The punchline to Sandburg's little gem is: (spoken)
"All cigarettes are milder than all other cigarettes"

He was singing this a hell of a long time before the 50s'.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 09:44 PM

Check out Don McLean's "Building My Body"


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 02:36 AM

Don't know if this is pro- or anti-, but it's old -- 1920's or so. Pro, probably.

Tobacco is a flthy weed -
I like it.
It satisfies no earthly need -
I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean --
It's the worst dam stuff I've eve seen -
I like it.

Personally, I don't like it. I don't mind if anyone else smokes, but downwind, please. And that goes for that g.d. rank cologne too.

There's a button that says "If you promise not to smoke, I promise not to fart." and that's pretty much my view.

clint


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 23 Jul 07 - 08:54 PM

they asked me how i knew
smoke was bad for you,whooh whooh
i of course replied,milions of us died
cos smoke got in our eyes


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Artful Codger
Date: 23 Jul 07 - 10:11 PM

How about that parlor favorite, "Father's a Smoker and Mother Is Dead"?


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Subject: Lyr Add: GIRL FROM EMPHYSEMA (parody, Steve Allen)
From: cetmst
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 07:33 AM

At a concert we attended the late Steve Allen sang a parody of "The Girl from Ipamena" and wrote it down for us afterward:

Tall and pale and light and chalky,
The girl from Emphysema goes walking,
And when she passes, each one she passes
Goes (wheezing, coughing).

She should stop smoking, that's her solution
But she contributes to air pollution,
And when she passes, through noxious gasses
It's (Wheezing, coughing).

Oh how she's coughing and sneezing;
Oh how she's hacking and wheezing;
So, she's not really so pleasing.
Once there were nights when we kissed,
Now she lives in a primatine mist.

Tall and pale and weak and sickly,
Those girls with emphysema go quickly,
And when she passes/ You'll see her lips turning blue,
Let the girl with emphysema/ Be a lesson
To you.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,chris
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 09:39 AM

I wonder how many smokers will now stay at home and increase the smoke content of their house- the houses with their children in and how many will go out into the beer gardens to smoke-where children may be.
The people who know what is best for us i.e. the ones who work to take away an individuals right will move onto banning cars and alcohol both very serious killers in their own way. And before anyone comes back and says that smokers are causing non smokers to inhale the smoke, you might want to consider that smokers had pubs etc. before the people demanded that smoking places be given up for non smokers. This was so much easier than going and creating their own non smoking places. Always steal from someone else rather than do anything active yourselves. Again, to get in first I was a heavy smoker for26 years and have given up for 30 years. I just don't like peoples rights stolen by do-gooders who know whats best for everyone else.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Artful Codger
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 03:01 AM

Ah yes, banning smoking in public will irreparably rend the social fabric and lead to anarchy, mayhem and the second coming. ;-}


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 03:27 AM

Chris,
If it's wrong to stay at home and give your children lung cancer, why is it right to go down to the pub and infect strangers? Of course, us non-smokers could give up drinking (and in my case, listening to great music) by staying at home so that smokers can continue to foul up the atmosphere.
We've had the ban in Ireland for several years now; no holocaust yet, and my asthmatic neighbour, who likes a drink, can now join us in the pub.
Long live the do-gooders (even longer - now that we don't all run the risk of having their lungs turned into lace curtains and going home smelling of other people's dirty habits).
Jim Carroll
PS I've never heard the 'squatter's rights' on pubs argument before - bit pathetic really!


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Subject: Lyr Add: ON THE BREWING OF SOMA (J G Whittier)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 02:51 PM

Not exactly anti-smoking, but anti-drug.

How many will recognise (before the last six verses) J G Whittier's:


On the Brewing of Soma

The fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke
Up through the green wood curled;
"Bring honey from the hollow oak,
Brink milky sap," the brewers spoke,
In the childhood of the world.

And brewed they well or brewed they ill,
The priests thrust in their rods,
First tasted, and then drank their fill,
And shouted, with one voice and will,
"Behold, the drink of the gods!"

They drank, and lo! in heart and brain
A new, glad life began;
They grew of hair grew young again,
The sick man laughed away his pain,
The cripple leaped and ran.

"Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent,
Forget you long annoy."
So sang the priests, From tent to tent
The Soma's sacred madness went,
A storm of drunken joy.

Then knew each rapt inebriate
A winged and glorious birth,
Soared upward, with strange joy elate,
Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate,
And sobered, sank to earth.

The land with Soma's praises rang;
On Gihon's banks of shade
Its hymns the dusky maidens sang;
In joy of life or mortal pang
All men to Soma prayed.

The morning twilight of the race
Sends down these matin psalms;
And still with wondering eyes we trace
The simple prayers to Soma's grace,
That verdic verse embalms.

As in the child-world's early year,
Each after age has striven
By music, incense, vigils drear,
And trance, to bring the skies more near,
Or life men up to heaven!

Some fever of the blood and brain,
Some self-exalting spell,
The scourger's keen delight of pain,
the Dervish dance, the Orphic strain,
The wild-haired Bacchant's yell, -

The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk
The saner brute below;
The naked Santon, haschish-drunk,
The cloister madness of the monk,
The fakir's torture show!

And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfill;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathen Soma still!

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
And noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
Thy beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the hearts of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be numb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!


CHEERS!
Nigel


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Subject: Lyr Add: WHERE TOBACCO IS NOT
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 08:39 AM

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music

WHERE TOBACCO IS NOT
Words, M. P. Hayden. Music, Antoinette Choate.
Boston: White-Smith Music Publishing Co., 1890.

1. Tell me, ye winged winds, that soar my pathway round,
Do ye not know some spot where tobacco is not found?
Some lone and pleasant dell, some valley in the west,
Where free from tobacco smell, the weary soul may rest?
The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low,
And sighed in pity as it answered, "No!"

2. Tell me, thou mighty deep, whose billows round me play,
Know'st thou some favored spot, some island far away,
Where stifled man may find the bliss for which he pants:
Freedom from fumes and juice of all narcotic plants?
The loud waves rolled in perpetual flow,
In deep bass voice resounded sadly, "No!"

3. And thou, serenest moon, that with such holy face,
Dost look upon the earth, asleep in night's embrace,
Tell me, in all thy round, has thou not seen some store
Where fine cut, cigarettes, cigars are sold no more?
Behind a cloud the moon withdrew her face,
And grieved, she slyly answered, "Nary a place!"

4. Tell me, my ransomed soul, sustained by hope and faith,
Is there no hiding place from juice and smoke and breath
Of vile tobacco dire; is there no happy spot
Where 'mid superior joys, tobacco be forgot?
Faith, hope and love, best boon to mortals given,
Flapped their bright wings and shouted, "Yes, in heav'n!"


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Artful Codger
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 02:36 PM

Hmm, according to "Big Rock Candy Mountain", there are cigarette trees in heaven. The Bible is strangely silent on this subject, presumably to allow theologians to debate whether there is indeed tobacco in heaven, and if so, how many angels can dance on a filter-tip.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:21 PM

Reminds me…I once had a dream about my deceased father-in-law. In my dream, he was on furlough from Heaven (or wherever). We (I, my wife, and my mother-in-law) had an appointment to meet him in an outdoor restaurant. When we arrived, he was already seated at a table, chatting with a friend, having a drink, and smoking a cigarette. (In real life, he had quit smoking many years before his death.) My wife, seeing him, was shocked. "Dad! What are you doing?" "Hey, it's OK," he answered. "I'm already dead."


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Subject: Lyr Add: THINK & SMOKE TOBACCO
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 06:44 PM

Another version of the one lamarca posted above, from The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music (which web site, by the way, has been redesigned recently):

"A Favorite Old Song
on Mortality,
THINK & SMOKE TOBACCO
Made agreeable & pleasing to all Classes,
from the King to the Beggar."

Boston : John Ashton & Co., 1836

1. This Indian weed now wither'd quite,
Though green at noon, cut down at night.
Shows thy decay:
All flesh is hay;
Thus think and smoke Tobacco.

2. The pipe so lily-like and weak,
Does thus thy mortal state bespeak,
Thou art even such;
Gone with a touch;
Thus think and smoke Tobacco.

3. And when the smoke ascends on high,
Then thou behold'st the vanity
Of worldly stuff,
Gone with a puff;
Thus think and smoke Tobacco.

4. And when the pipe grows foul within,
Think on thy soul defiled with sin;
For then the fire
It does require;
Thus think and smoke Tobacco.

5. And see'st the ashes cast away,
Then to thyself thou may'st say
That to the dust,
Return thou must;
Thus think and smoke Tobacco.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: robinia
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:46 AM

I think the Smoking Song on Seeger and Scott's "No Spring Chickens" (1992) qualifies. Has anyone mentioned it?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:00 PM

Chris, And before anyone comes back and says that smokers are causing non smokers to inhale the smoke, you might want to consider that smokers had pubs etc. before the people demanded that smoking places be given up for non smokers. , what a load of bollocks.

Show me that smokers were in pubs before non-smokers and I will show my arse from Blackpool tower.

Pubs - At least 2000 years that we know of. The Romans found them in existance when they came here - so longer than that realy. Tobacco smoke? Any want to give me an accurate date? Mmmmm. Maybe Walter Raleigh? Maybe pubs had 'smoking rooms' in my Grandads day as well, showing that smokers had not always been the selfish ignorant gits that they are today.

And why anyone thinks that justifying one anti-social act by saying that there are some worse is beyond me. Yeh, OK. Lets bring back bear baiting and cock fighting. Lets de-criminalise rape and child abuse. After all, driving a car is FAR worse!

For heavens sake...

Dave


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Subject: Lyr Add: NON-SMOKING SECTION (Bob Kanefsky)
From: Joe_F
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 09:17 PM

Non-Smoking Section
This parody was sung by Leslie Fish on Tapeworm 2

Parody of "Mount Tam", words and music by Leslie Fish

For more information and other parodies, see www.songworm.com
Parody lyrics ©2/23/89 by Bob Kanefsky. All rights reserved. The copyright of the original lyrics and music remain with the holder(s) of the original copyright.

Here I sit at the front of the plane.
Might as well be a freeway lane
Or the depths of a chimney stack.
The flight is smooth, but the air is gray
With the breath of the smokers that drifts my way
From the seats just a few rows back.

Chorus:
So if there be any on board
Who must light up in the short duration of the flight,
Then for the short duration of the flight,
Please step outside.

Pressure's low, so the cabin's sealed.
The filters get more than they can field;
And here is a noxious cloud.
Its tendrils run through the intake duct
To the maze of vents where the air is sucked
And supplied to the front-row crowd.

(Refrain)

Studies show that recycled smoke
Makes smoking sections a useless joke:
The whole cabin space will fill.
The blood and urine of those who refrain
Show nicotine from the back of the plane
Invading their bodies, still.

(Refrain)

We who need to travel by air
Find ourselves in the dragon's lair
Of a vice that we did not choose.
They'll wreck their bodies, and that's just fine,
But the grave they're digging should not be mine,
Nor the kids', nor the cabin crew's.

(Refrain)


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Mark H.
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:47 AM

Who can forget the B-side of Rolf Harris's "Tie Me Kangaroo Down"?
"Of course," you cry as one, "Nick Teen and Al K. Hall!"


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,Ted Hazen
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 12:49 PM

Pootwaddle Cigarettes Spike Jones, sung by Doodles Weaver. Tthis was years before the Surgeon General's report! Does anyone know the words?


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE
From: topical tom
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:51 PM

Jimmy Dean
SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE
Merle Travis/Tex Ritter

1. Now I'm a fella with a heart of gold,
With the ways of a gentleman, I've been told,
A kind of a guy that wouldn't even harm a flea.
But if me and a certain character met,
The guy that invented the cigarette,
I'd murder that son of a gun in the first degree.

2. It ain't that I don't smoke myself,
And I don't reckon they'll hinder your health.
I've smoked them all my life and I ain't dead yet.
But nicotine slaves are all the same.
At a pettin' party or a poker game,
Everythin's gotta stop while you have that cigarette.

CHORUS: Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.
Puff, puff, puff and if you smoke yourself to death,
Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette.

3. Now at a game of chance the other night,
Ol' Dame Fortune was a doin' me right.
The kings and queens just kept on comin' round.
And I got a full and I betted high,
But my bluff didn't work on a certain guy.
He just kept a risin' and layin' his money down.

4. He'd raise me and I'd raise him,
And I sweated blood. You gotta sink or swim.
He finally called and he couldn't raise the bet.
I said, "Aces full, pal. How about you?"
He said, "I'll tell you in a minute or two,
But right now I just gotta have another cigarette."

Smoke smoke smoke...
[ piano ]

5. Now the other night I had me a date
With the cutest little gal in the fifty states,
One of them high-bred up-town fancy little dames.
She said she loved me and it seemed to me
That things were just about like they oughta be,
So hand in hand we strolled down Lover's Lane.

6. She was oh so far from a chunk of ice,
And our smoochin' party was a goin' real nice,
So help me Hannah, and I think I'd of been there yet.
I give her a kiss and a little squeeze,
And she said, "Would you excuse me, please?
But I just gotta have another cigarette."

Smoke smoke smoke... X 2
You just gotta have another cigarette


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Subject: Lyr Add: NICOTINE BLUES (Martin Winsor)
From: Newport Boy
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:55 PM

I'm not sure this is an anti-smoking song, but I think a detect a slight note of regret.

Nicotine Blues, by Martin Winsor (about 1960)

I wake up in the morning no damn good
I lie there in the bed just like a block of wood
I fumble for the matches, light that morning fag
There ain't nothing like that first sweet drag

Chorus
Nicotine, nicotine
I'm just a slave to that nicotine
You can keep your liquor and your Benzedrine
I'm just a slave to that nicotine

About every hour or so I get that yen
Gotta stop everything and have a smoke again
Looks like I was born the type
That just lays around and smokes my pipe

Some folks like that old Virginia grown
Smoke tailor-mades or they roll their own
You can do what you like to that Indian weed
Me, I would even chew the seed

Don't go much on that old opium
Hashish only leaves me feeling numb
But if you want to see me swing on a star
Feed me up with a fat cigar

Every night before I go to bed
A certain thought passes through my head
I know it's no use my counting sheep
If I don't have a smoke I just can't sleep.


I can't remember where I got this from, but I noted it down about 1961.

Phil


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Subject: Lyr Add: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Davie Robertson)
From: jacko@nz
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:52 PM

I doubt that Davie Robertsons' humour is to everyone's taste but his observations of the human condition appeal to me.

                   Crime and Punishment

Saint Peter stood at heaven's gate tae vet the newly deid
Wi snaw white goonie, muckle beard, and a halo roond his heid
A wheen o new arrivals stood and trembled at his gaze
And bitterly repented o the error o their ways

First came a serial killer wha had terrorised the nation
By subjectin auld age pensioners tae rape and strangulation
"Come in ma lad" Saint Peter said "Yer sins are gey bad seemin
But we'll no deny ye entry ower a puckle daft auld weemin"

Next came an evil junkie whae presumed his hopes was nil
For he yuis tae deal in heroin tae wee bairns at the skuil
"Come ma lad, ye're no that bad. Even for your kind there's hope.
An we'll no deny ye entry ower a wee bit toot o dope"

Next came a gambler, a' his life he Lady Luck had served
He had squandered a' his fortune while his wife and children sterved
"Come in ma lad yer no that bad, come in an' meet yer buddies
An we'll no deny ye entry ower a flutter on the cuddies"

Next came a hopeless drunkard whae stood clamourin tae get in
As he pished against the gatepost, he splashed Saint Peter's shuin
The saint whipped oot a snaw-white cloot and dichted off his feet
"Come in" he says "but when next ye pee, there's a gents just up the street"

Next came a pervert lewd and vile, wi tastes base and perverse
His een lit up an lingered on a passin cherub's erse
"Come in ma lad, yer no that bad, oor love is wide and deep
An we'll overlook yer escapades wi Fettes boys and sheep"

So yin by yin they a moved up an forrit tae the gate
Thieves, muggers, rapists, murderers, they hadnae long tae wait
They never thocht in a' their days that they would be sae lucky
For it seemed the celestial gatekeeper wisnae botherin his buckie

Last came a fine upstanding chap in clean white shirt and tie
Sic a paragon o virtue seldom met Saint Peter's eye
Nae shame or blame had stained his name in a' his long life story
The gate swung wide, he stepped inside, intae eternal glory

Then sounded forth a michty voice that spoke wi awesome thunder
"Haud on the noo, this will not do, there's been a serious blunder
Send him tae Hell, where he'll serve well, employed as Satan's stoker
Nae room I fear, for him in here. That bastard is a smoker"

Jack


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Irene M
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:07 AM

Two songs come to mind.
Robb Thompson wrote one, which I think Proper Little Madams sang, the only line of which I can recall is: "They wave their obscene cancer sticks around my house and when they've gone, for several days the putrid perfume lingers on". [People Who Smoke]

Peggy Seeger also has a corker of a song [It's a Free World] about getting her own back on smokers (by farting in their company).


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 12:28 AM

"Tobacco Song" (Mike Cross)
"Chocolate Cigarettes" (Sylvia Tyson & Tom Russell)


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Subject: Lyr Add: I'M SO TIRED (Lennon, McCartney)
From: number 6
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 01:43 AM

"I'm so Tired" by the Beatles

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No,no,no.

I'm so tired I don't know what to do
I'm so tired my mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke, it's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks, I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
for a little peace of mind

I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walter Raleigh
He was such a stupid git.

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke, it's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks, I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

(mumbling) Monsieur Monsieur Lets have another one


biLL


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Subject: Lyr Add: BEEN SMOKING TOO LONG (Robin Frederick)
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 02:04 AM

Been Smoking Too Long
Words & Music by Robin Frederick

I wake up in the morning
Look at my clock   It's way past noontime
I know I'm late for work
Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong   
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking too long.

I go to fix me some breakfast
But I ain't got no food
Go to take me a shower
But the water don't feel no good
Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking too long.

Got opium in my chimney
Got the marijuana blues
Got a nightmare made of hash dreams
Got the devil in my shoes
Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking too long.

Now when I get to smokin'
I put my worries on a shelf
Don't think about nothin'
Try not to see myself
Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking too long.

Now in these blues I'm singing
There's a lesson to be learned
Don't go round smokin'
'Less you want to get burned
Tell me, tell me, what have I done wrong
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking...
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking...
Ain't nothin' goin' right for me
Must be I been smoking too long.

MP3s are

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:04 PM

Smoking is more addictive than cocaine or heroin.

As for smoker's rights, as long as they don't spread their smoke to non-smokers, then i would have no trouble with them. But they have no rights if they lay their trip on you
through second-hand smoke. They have the right to poison themselves but not others.

I think of it as a metaphor of religious or political evangelism. Keep it to yourselves and don't infect others.

Frank


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:03 PM

smoking is not so cool
if you smoke your a fool


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Apr 08 - 05:22 AM

No, Clare, I don't understand the rationale for smoking. What is it, please?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,ACE
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 12:36 AM

Do you know the Christas Carol Parodies? There are quite a few of them
They are pretty good, though I have not located them.
O Little Town of Bethlehem becomes
O little lungs of smoking men etc.
Cheers


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Subject: Lyr Add: PEOPLE WHO SMOKE (Proper Little Madams)
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 07:28 AM

I haven't seen this mentioned that Proper Little Madams used to do.

People Who Smoke.

People who smoke:
The thought of nicotine-crazed junkies makes me choke.
They hack and cough and splutter before they're halfway out of bed.
Why don't they get the job done properly and drop dead.
The way they rave,
If they're denied the noxious poison that they crave.
They suffer more horrific symptoms than a diver with the bends,
And crawl on hands and knees through gutters for dog-ends.

To some vast plain,
They should be forcibly removed by cattle-train,
And in a mighty conflagration of burning tyres and acrid smoke,
They should be made to puff and pant until they choke.
But no such luck.
They come round to my house for tea and then light up.
They wave their obscene cancer sticks around the house, and when they're gone,
For seven days the putrid perfume lingers on.

CH.
Their bloodshot eyes, their sickly mien,
They should be made to ring a bell and shout "Unclean."

Caligula:
I bet he always smoked a whacking great cigar.
The Boston Strangler and Crippen, all those mad psychotic slags,
Before they maimed and killed, I bet they had a drag.
Speaking of death,
The average smoker will request with his last breath,
Not to be buried underground, where worms will rot him into mash,
But to be burned so he can turn to smoke and ash.

CH.
Their bloodshot eyes, their sickly mien,
They should be made to ring a bell and shout "Unclean."

Smoking's not nice.
The unsophisticated anti-social vice.
They can keep their filthy roll-ups, shag tobacco, Cuban whiffs,
I'm getting desperate for some coke or glue to sniff.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 07:54 AM

There is a spectacular rant against smoking and the tobacco industry on YouTube (part poem, part blues) by Allen Ginsberg. But he delivers it so fast I can't figure out more than about half of the words. Was it ever published on paper?


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Subject: Lyr Add: PUT DOWN YOUR CIGARETTE RAG (DON'T SMOKE)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Sep 08 - 11:42 AM

Lyrics copied from http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=POETICS&D=0&P=482451

Also found at YouTube here and here. Ginsberg sings/chants/recites this poem to a strict rhythm.


PUT DOWN YOUR CIGARETTE RAG (DON'T SMOKE)
by Allen Ginsberg

Dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke
Dont smoke
It's a nine billion dollar
Capitalist Communist joke
Dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke
Dont smoke

Smoking makes you cough,
You cant sing straight
You gargle on saliva
& vomit on your plate
Dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke,
Dont smoke smoke smoke smoke

You smoke in bed
You smoke on the hill
Smoke till yr dead
You smoke in Hell
Dont smoke dont smoke in living Hell Dope Dope
Dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke

You puff your fag
You suck your butt
You choke & gag
Teeth full of crud
Smoke smoke smoke smoke Dont dont dont
Dont Dont Dope Dope Dope Dont Smoke Dont Dope

Pay your two bucks
for a deathly pack
Trust your bad luck
& smoke in the sack
Dont Smoke Dont Smoke Nicotine Nicotine No
No dont smoke the official Dope Smoke Dope Dope

Four Billion dollars in Green
'swat Madison Avenue gets
t' advertise nicotine
& hook you radical brats
Dont Smoke Dont Smoke Dont Smoke
Nope Nope Dope Dope Hoax Hax Hoax Hoax
Dopey Dope Dopey Dope Dope Dope dope dope

Black magic pushes dope
Sexy chicks in cars
America loses hope
& smokes and drinks in bars
Don't smoke dont smoke dont smoke,
dont smoke dont dont dont dont dont
choke choke choke choke kaf kaf
Kaf Kaf Choke Choke
Choke Choke Dope Dope

Communism's flopped
Let's help the Soviet millions
Sell 'em our Coffin-Nails
& make a couple billions
Big Bucks Big Bucks bucks bucks
bucks bucks smoke smoke smoke smoke
smoke Bucks smoke bucks Dope bucks big
Dope Bucks Dig Big Dope Bucks Big Dope
Bucks dont smoke big dope bucks
Dig big Pig dope bucks

Nine billion bucks a year
a Southern Industry
Buys Senator Jesse Fear* who pushes Tobacco subsidy
In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Dope smokes dope smokes dont smoke dont smoke
Cloak cloak cloak room cloak & dagger
smoke room cloak room dope cloak
cloak room dope cloak room dope dont smoke

Nine billion bucks for dope
approved by Time & Life
America loses hope
The President smokes Tobacco votes
Dont Smoke dont smoke dont smoke dont smoke
Dont smoke nope nope nope nope

30 thousand die of coke or
Illegal speed each year
430 thousand cigarette deaths
That's the drug to fear
In USA Dont smoke Dont smoke Dont smoke

Get Hooked on Cigarettes
Go Fight the War on Drugs
Smoke any other Weed
Get bust by Government Thugs
Dont smoke dont smoke the official dope

If you will get in bed
& give your girlfriend head
then you wont want a fag
Nor evermore a drag
Dont Smoke dont smoke Hope Hope Hope Hope
O Please Dont Smoke Dont Smoke
O Please O Please O Please
I'm calling on my knees

Twenty-four hours in bed
& give your boyfriend head
Put something in your mouth
Like skin not cigarette filth
Suck tit suck tit suck cock suck cock
suck clit suck prick suck it
but dont smoke nicotine dont smoke
dont smoke nicotine nicotine it's
too obscene dont smoke dont smoke
nicotine suck cock suck prick suck tit
suck clit suck it But dont smoke shit nope
nope nope nope Dope Dope Dope Dope
the official dope Dont Smoke

Make believe yer sick
Stay in bed and lick
yr cigarette habit greed
One day's all you need
In deed in deed in deed in deed smoke weed
smoke weed Put something green
in between but don't smoke smoke dont smoke
hope hope hope hope Nicotine dont
smoke the official dope
Dope Dope Dope Dope Dont Smoke
Smoke weed indeed smoke grass yass yass
smoke pot but not nicotine no no
indeed it's too obscene
put something green
in between your lips get hip not square
listen to my wail don't dare smoke coffin nails
ugh ugh ugh ugh the government Drug
official habit for Mr. Babbitt
Dont smoke the official dope
dope dope dope dope don't smoke
Dont Smoke Dont Smoke.


[*Senator Jesse Fear = Jesse Helms. An earlier version of the poem had "Senator Joe Fear who runs the CIA", i.e. Joseph McCarthy(?).]

Ginsberg, Allen. First Blues: Rags, Ballads & Harmonium Songs, 1971-74. New York: Full Court Press, 1975.

Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems, 1947-1997. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.


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Subject: Lyr Add: THE ANTI-SMOKING SONG (Bob Rowley)
From: GUEST,Bob Rowley
Date: 09 May 09 - 05:59 AM

Hi Folks,
You can listen & download my song for free on:
http://www.myspace.com/bobrowley

Here are the written words:

THE ANTI-SMOKING SONG: - (DON'T TRY TO QUIT SMOKING FOREVER):
by Bob Rowley

Tobacco you were a devil. Like a curse from the day I was born.
Maybe I'll meet you in Purgatory, 'but I'm not in hell anymore, boy. I'm not your slave after all

Been smoking Tobacco most of my life.         Addicted before I was born.
        Back in the days when a smoke was alright.
Just after the second World War, boy. After the second World War.

I clearly remember my first cigarette. Oh My, I thought it was cool.
When I bought my first pack, there was no turning back, I got hooked - like any young fool, boy,
Just ask any kid in my school.

Tobacco you were a devil. Like a curse from the day I was born.
Maybe I'll meet you in Purgatory, but I'm not in hell anymore. No. I'm not your slave after all

But every morning for so many years, I tasted a bitter defeat.
The habit of losing kept bringing me down, and scaring the life out of me ... fiddle de dee

When I finally went to my Doctor, his words filled me with cheer :
'Don't try to quit smoking forever' he said 'Just stop for a couple of years, boy.
Think of the next thirty years.'

'Cos Carcinoma in the old- runs slow, and if you abstain,
You may survive to eighty five, then you can start smoking again .. .it's all in your brain.

Now maybe you think I am crazy, but the difference seemed perfectly plain.
I could never quit smoking forever, but to stop for a while I was game.
And that was the break in my chain, boy.

No tobacco will torment your body, but treat the discomfort with scorn.
A light at the end of the tunnel will shine, through the cracks as the old prison wall comes a crumbling down

And into this light you will wonder, as all of the symptoms withdraw.
In a year and a day there'll be no price to pay, for body and soul to restore boy.
Body and soul to restore. In a year and a day, you'll be able to say,
'my ship has outrun the storm. My ship has outrun the storm'.

Tobacco you were a devil. Like a curse from the day I was born
Maybe I'll meet you in Purgatory. But I'm not in Hell anymore, I'm not your slave after all.
Maybe I'll see you in thirty years. Perhaps I'll won't see you at all. I'm not your slave after all.
My ship has outrun the storm, …And this life is a rose with no thorn.
©Robin M. Rowley, 5th May 2009, Lint, Belgium


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Emma B
Date: 09 May 09 - 06:43 AM

Thank you for your promotional link GUEST,Bob Rowley but it doesn't seem appropiate or courteous to me to also post the same message in 13 unrelated music threads in a 30 minute period this morning!


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 09 May 09 - 07:02 AM

My first reaction was to cut you some slack, Bob - and that might have remained so despite the 13 postings (11 of them identical, with no attempt to "topicalise" them, which shows some serious disregard for others!).

But your statement that you "write traditional British songs" (in your posting on the traditional song thread) went beyond disregard and risibleness to being downright offensive. A quick apology might cover it.

I still support your right to promote yourself. But not to cover me with thoughtless blanket marketing that treats me like a fool.

We are not sheep, Bob. I would have said "Put that in your pipe and smoke it", but given your strong feelings on the subject perhaps I won't.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 09 May 09 - 07:14 AM

By the way - good song, and good voice (on MySpace).
Maar, wat doet jij in Antwerpen, een van de mooiste staden in het wereld? De groeten aan het Schelde!


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 May 09 - 10:15 AM

longhair,

I don't like perfume either but it doesn't cause cancer and lung damage.

Anyone defending smoking today is living in the Dark Ages.

Frank


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: fumblefingers
Date: 09 May 09 - 06:20 PM

Jimmy Martin did one called "I Can't Quit Cigarettes" I'll look for the words, but first I'm goin' for a smoke.


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Subject: Lyr Add: I'LL DO MY SMOKING IN THE RAIN (parody)
From: Bluegrassman
Date: 09 May 09 - 07:41 PM

Here is a good song to sing in the Leper Colony on a cold wet night to the tune of the Everly Brothers, I`ll do my crying in the rain.


I'LL DO MY SMOKING IN THE RAIN


I'll never let you see
The way my coughing lungs are hurting me
I got my pride and I know how to hide
Every nicotine stain
I'll do my smoking in the rain

Slip out in stormy skies
Then smoke and cough till I get tears in my eyes
Where I have been looks like a disaster scene
Just cigarette butts remain
I do my smoking in the rain

I love you more than heaven
But our relationship is never enough
So when we are together
I pray for stormy weather
I hide the packet and go out for a puff.

Someday when my coughing is done
I'll wear a minty smile and walk in the sun.
I may be a fool
but till the end darling you 'll
Never see me complain
I'll do my smoking in the rain.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 09 May 09 - 09:50 PM

A wonderful parody, even if I say so myself... Has it really been two years (June 2007) since the smoking ban in England?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 10 May 09 - 07:03 PM

Not really applicable to this thread, but readers might be interested to learn that the wonderful contribution made by cigarette companies in Australia to the World War 2 effort was to give free cigarettes to the armed forces. Thus ensnaring an entire generation to smoking . Very clever. Nice chaps.

Allen


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 09 - 07:06 PM

Curious the difference in attitudes when it comes to activities a minority of people enjoy which carry a certain risk to health. I mean, if someone had started a thread asking for "Anti-gay-sex songs"...


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,janet
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 06:56 AM

might as well give up now cos heavens a smoke free zone


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 01:10 PM

(from oldtime song Greasy Coat)
-- I don't drink
I don't smoke
I don't wear no greasy coat

I don't smoke and I don't chew
I don't go out with girls that do

(it's a great fiddle tune and song)


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKERS ARE SCUM (C. Denney)
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 12:37 PM

Smokers Are Scum;         12-25-09, by C.Denney
(a holiday song; gentle commentary on one of the obvious perils of street performing)

I play the street fairs
I play from the heart
fiddle and guitar
and squeezebox for art
we play for the old folk
we play for the bums
but we don't play for smokers
cause smokers are scum
smokers are scum
smokers are scum
they know they're addicted
they know smoking's dumb
they know that exposure
is deadly to us
but they're hoping we're stupid
and won't make a fuss

smokers are addicts
they know smoking kills
they're too frigging lazy
to smoke somewhere else
what's the big problem
with walking away
I wish their smoking
would kill them today
smokers are fools
smokers are fools
they shill for tobacco
like industry tools
making us share
their addiction's a farce
take your stupid cigarette
and shove it up your arse

don't light up near me
because if you do
I got a squirt-gun
and my aim is true
folks think they're helpless
but I say they're not
pick up some bug spray
give smokers a shot
smokers are stupid
and ugly and dumb
smokers expose you
cause they think it's fun
they won't smoke elsewhere
because it's too tough
smoking will kill them
but not fast enough

(bridge)
it gets in your clothing
it gets in your hair
cause asthma cause cancer
but smokers don't care
the deep inconvenience
of walking away
it too hard for smokers and
that's why I say

pick up some bug spray
some air freshener too
don't let a smoker
light up next to you
their rights have ended
where your lungs begin
pick up your squirt-gun
and baby you win
they'll poison your street gig
they'll poison your lungs
they won't put on patches
or just chew some gum
they're screwed-up and stupid
and ugly and dumb
they'll poison their mothers
cause smokers are scum
(coda)
be glad it's just bug spray
instead of a gun (…hold…)
they'll poison their mothers
cause smokers are scum


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 11:48 AM

old tobacco, that old tobacco
it just keeps killin
cuz folks are willin
to keep on smokin
they keep on smokin away.

phlegm they're coughin, could fill a coffin
They'll burn your house down
from ash they're droppin
that old tobacco
just keeps killin away.


Buy those smokes, and you will choke
You'll get a cancer
that ain't no hoax
smoke or chew, they'll both kill you
Get a little drunk and the heart fails too-ooo.


old tobacco, that old tobacco
it just keeps killin
cuz folks are willin
to keep on smokin
they keep on smokin away.




( a few words I threw together to the tune of Old Man River.)

best sung by a countra bass with a cough.

PS smokers are neither stupid or scum.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 12:44 PM

Smokers who smoke in street fairs near other people are scum- the song makes the context clear in the first verse.


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Subject: Lyr Add: NON-SMOKER'S LIBERATION FRONT ANTHEM
From: GUEST,BF
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 12:51 PM

THE NON-SMOKER’S LIBERATION FRONT ANTHEM
Words and music by Don Lange.
As recorded by [Doug] Freeman & [Don] Lange on “Freeman & Lange,” Flying Fish #011, 1975.

Keep on smokin’ that cigarette, you crazy fool.
Keep on suckin’ that Salem, blow a Camel, kiss a Kool.
You’re a man of distinction, a guy with real charm,
But your breath smells worse than your underarm.
Keep on smokin’ that cigarette, you crazy fool.

Why should you give a damn about cancer? We all got to go sometime.
It’s OK for you to ruin your lungs, but why won’t you spare me mine?
That factory on the corner, it’s pollutin’ the air,
But you can’t smell it, so why the hell should you care?
You just keep on smokin’ that cigarette, you crazy fool.

Keep on doin’ your consumin’ best for the good old USA.
Keep those black folk workin’ in the fields, drawin’ a dollar a day.
Our American Tobacco Co. and Liggett & Myers,
They’re all good men, so baby, light your fire,
And keep on smokin’ that cigarette, you crazy fool.

[Spoken:] Now, if we ask you kindly not to smoke, please don’t think that we’re mean.
Every mother knows that suckling babes eventually must be weaned.
[Sung:] Before your next nicci*-fit, take a stick of dried beef.
You can chew it, you can suck it, and it won’t stain your teeth.
Oh, you can keep on smokin’ that cigarette, you crazy fool.
I mean to tell you—
You’re a crazy—
...
You’re a crazy fool.

- - -
* Nicotine.


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Subject: Lyr Add: WITH MEN WHO KNOW TOBACCO BEST
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:50 PM

This song is a sequel, apparently, to SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE! (THAT CIGARETTE), which was written by Merle Travis and Tex Williams, and recorded by Tex Williams. The lyrics have been posted above. The verse is recited in exactly the same rhythm as the earlier song. The chorus, however, is adapted a bit to squeeze more syllables into each line. You can hear this song at http://78records.cdbpdx.com/. (Follow instructions on that page to get to the "main music page.")


WITH MEN WHO KNOW TOBACCO BEST
Written by Lou Busch and Charles Hayes
As recorded by Tex Williams and His Western Caravan, on Capitol 40276, circa 1949-50.

1. Now I heard tell about a guy who smoked
So doggone much he up and croaked,
And now he's restin' six feet underground.
He'd stop a red-hot poker game,
A pettin' party with a beautiful dame,
To light a cigarette to calm him down.
I used to be just like that guy.
I had to have a smoke or die.
For nicotine, I'd even hock my boots.
But then I stopped. I'd had enough.
I vowed I'd taken my last puff.
I found a brand-new brand that really suits.

CHORUS: With men who know tobacco best, it's women two to one.
Ask any man who's made the test which product gets the gun,
And if this fellow's a manly guy,
You can bet your shirt that he'll reply:
"With men who know tobacco best, it's women two to one."

2. Now I was quite a connoisseur.
I knew tobacco, that's for sure.
I tried most ever' kind of nicotine.
I've smoked a pipe, a cigar too,
Some tailor-mades, and rolled a few,
And as a kid I smoked the coffee bean.
But then I met a man one day,
His face was old, his hair was gray,
And upon his frame his clothes so loosely hung.
He listened to me brag awhile
'Bout cigarettes, then with a smile,
He said, "My boy, get wise while you're still young."

3. While sittin' in a bar one night,
I asked a lady for a light.
My cigarette had gone and lost its flame.
She looked at me from head to toe,
Said, "I don't smoke, but goodness knows
I just love to play those parlor games."
I said, "No, thanks, I'd rather smoke."
And then and there I thought she'd choke,
But then she started smilin' with delight.
I moved to leave. She said, "Sit still."
And as she moved in for the kill,
Said, "Son, I've got good news for you tonight."


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:33 AM

Yes, George Papavgeris, and smoking was banned in public places a year earlier, in Scotland; earlier still in Ireland, though as one common amendment to billposters advertising this has it, "It is illegal to smoke [tobacco] on these premises".



Come all ye good folk who can take a good joke,
Cast a coin in the poke as I'm strumming the lyre:
While I sing, ye may smoke all ye like, till ye choke:
Like a "pig going to hoke", or to rowl in the mire,
Take a last, fiery drag of a dirty ould fag
Till ye cough like a hag and ye spit oan the flair --
Till the Western horizon is grey wi' the poison,
Like incense arisin', when Priests are at prayer.


(First verse of a song "commemorating" these bans; "like a pig going to hoke", or dig, is a proverbial way of saying someone is absolutely determined to do something, no matter how ill-advised, and will not be dissuaded or prevented).


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Subject: Lyr Add: LUNG CANCER (Randy Stonehill)
From: mousethief
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 11:24 PM

I always wonder that the old dears that gave us prohibition never turned their sights on tobacco. What a much more productive interlude that might have been.

Short but sweet:

Lung Cancer
Randy Stonehill

she went down to the corner store
and bought a pack of filter kings
don't you know tomorrow she'll be back for more
'cause she really loves to smoke those things

and every time that she inhales
a cloud of that cigarette smoke
she's just one step closer to the man in black
and sixty cents closer to broke

and she's working on

lung cancer, emphysema, a cardiac arrest
and she'll probably have a stroke when see sees
the x-rays of her chest

when she had her first cigarette
a puff or two was all she could take
now if she doesn't have one in her hand all the time
you'll notice it begin to shake (shake baby)

and even though she's nonchalant
and acts as if her habit's a joke
she won't do too much laughing when
her life goes up in smoke

she's been smoking that C-I-G-A-R-E-T-T-E
that cigarette's got her on her knees
C-I-G-A-R-E-T-T-E
that darn tobacco won't set her free

oh run, suck, baby, suck
suck on that cigarette
go on and light up that fag and take a drag
it's bound to snuff you yet



O..O
=o=


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 03:31 PM

The craving Got is for a smoke
Is ever pending
My sight is bleak
It is such a joke

Reading into it brings me doubt
I cannot do this again
It is to hard
Nothing good will amount

Once I take a puff
the idea of having another hits me
It is such a tragic event
I have had enough


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 10 - 03:49 AM

There is another verse that has been omitted from Sheila Hancock's song, which starts with her calling out to a male friend/partner "Sidney, run down the shop and get me a packet of menthol King Size. I want to feel like a cool mountain stream! ". . .

The missing verse goes something like:

My teeth are all yellow
And so is my tongue
I breathe through a kipper
I call it a lung!
But I'll give up the habit, I will even yet,
When I've had just one more cigarette!

I loved that record as a child, it amused us all at home, ghoulish humour but we were very unsophisticated in those far off days! We loved Sheila Hancock's husky voiced delivery of her lines, accompanied by lots of coughing and bit of thin reedy warbling! A typical addicted smoker who is always "going to give up after just one more cigarette"!

prettypolly


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 09:52 AM

This is one of the best ones I've heard, posted in another thread:

ADVERTISING MAN by David Wilcox.


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Subject: Lyr Add: A MERRY PROGRESS TO LONDON (broadside)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 02:56 PM

The text below is copied from a broadside at the English Broadside Ballad Archive at the University of California at Santa Barbara—but I have modernized the spelling (and to some extent, the punctuation) and added verse numbers. It is from the Pepys collection.

Ewan MacColl recorded this song on “Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1 (London: 1600-1700)” (1962); you can hear it at YouTube. He omitted verses 5, 7-8, 10, 13-15, and 17, as I have indicated by enclosing those verses in brackets.


A MERRY PROGRESS TO LONDON
TO SEE FASHIONS, BY A YOUNG COUNTRY GALLANT THAT HAD MORE MONEY THAN WIT.

To the tune of Riding to Rumford.

1. My mother to heaven is gone; ten pounds she gave me.
Now never a penny's left, as God shall have me.
Yet still my heart is free; I live at liberty,
And keep good company, taking tobacco.

2. Old woman, fare thee well; thanks for thy kindness.
My plough and cart are gone, with my good geldings.
I have no foot of land, nor one groat at command.
Which way then shall I stand, to a pipe of tobacco?

3. My purse will chink no more; my pocket's empty.
I am turned out of door; farewell, good company.
Friendship now slender grows; poverty parteth those
That for drink sell their clothes, and for tobacco.

4. My cloak is laid to pawn with my old dagger.
My state is quite o'erthrown; how shall I swagger?
Yet I'll do what I can, and be no coward then,
But prove myself a man, at a pipe of tobacco.

[5. In an old satin suit, without a penny,
We gallants may brag it brave as well as any.
What though my credit's lost, yet can I find a post
Still to score with mine host, for a pipe of tobacco.]

6. Upon a proper nag daintily pacéd.
To London first I came, all with gold lacéd.
Then with my punk each day, rode I to see a play.
There went my gold away, taking tobacco.

[7. Twenty good sheep I brought, left by my mother:
Ewes and lambs, cows and calves, one with the other,
With which I paid a shot, for a pipe and a pot.
All these were bravely got, and spent in tobacco.]

[8. No companion was I then for clownish carters.
I wore embroidered hose, with golden garters.
My silver-hatchéd sword, made me swear like a lord.
Come, rogue; at every word, fill me tobacco.]

THE SECOND PART OF THE MERRY PROGRESS TO LONDON.
TO THE SAME TUNE.


9. Then tracing the gallant streets of London city,
A damsel me kindly greets, courteous and witty.
She like a singing lark, led me into the dark,
Where I soon paid a mark, for a pipe of tobacco.

[10. To Smithfield then gallantly took I my journey,
Where I left soon behind part of my money.
There I found out a punk, with whom I was so drunk,
That my purse bottom shrunk, away with tobacco.]

11. Pickthatch and Clerkenwell made me so merry,
Until my purse at last, began to grow weary.
Yellow-starched bonny Kate, with her fine nimble pate,
Cozened me of my plate, with a pipe of tobacco.

12. Then for good fellowship, to Garden-alley,
I hied me to search for daughters of folly.
There I found roaring boys, with their fair female joys,
And the devil-making toys, to take tobacco.

[13. After, to Shoreditch then, stood I beholding,
Where I found sinners store, of the devil's molding.
I speak for no slander, the punk and her pander,
Like a goose and her gander, took whiffs of tobacco.]

[14. To St Katharine's passed I next, not without trouble,
Where my purse lashed out, drinking beer double.
A tester for each toast, paid I there to my host,
And the sauce to my cost, was a crown for tobacco.]

[15. To Ratcliff and Wapping then, went I for shipping,
Whereat a lass lovingly gave me a whipping.
There was a bonny wench, struck a nail would not clench,
That taught me finely French, taking tobacco.]

16. Then straight to Westminster made I adventure,
To find good fellows who willed me to enter,
Where I felt such a smoke, as might the devil choke.
There went away my cloak, with the smoke of tobacco.

[17. Backward to Barbican quickly I hasted.
There met I honest John, my money being wasted.
A pipe and a pot (quoth he) my friend I'll bestow on thee;
Then let’s to no-body, there's the best tobacco.]

18. Now farewell, good fellowship; London, I leave thee.
Never more whilst I live, shall they deceive me.
Every street, every lane, holds me in disdain.
London hath wrought my bane, so farewell, tobacco.

Finis.
Imprinted at London for J. White.


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Subject: Lyr Add: THE HUSBAND WHO USES TOBACCO
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 07:05 PM

From the sheet music at the Library of Congress:


THE HUSBAND WHO USES TOBACCO
Composed by Ossian E. Dodge, ©1848.
“Sung by the Misses Macomber and Messrs Covert & Dodge,
with unbounded applause in the principal cities of the union.”


1. He sits in his chair from morn till night.
’Tis smoke, chew, smoke.
He rises at dawn his pipe to light,
Goes puffing and chewing with all his might
Till the hour of sleep ’tis his delight
To smoke, chew, smoke.

2. He sits all day in a smoke or fog
‘Tis puff, puff, puff.
He growls at his wife, the cat and the dog.
He covers with filth the carpet and rug,
And his only reply when moved by a jog
Is puff, puff, puff.

3. The quid goes in when his pipe goes out.
‘Tis chew, chew, chew.
A cloud of smoke comes from his throat.
His mouth sends forth a stream afloat
Sufficient to carry a mill or boat.
‘Tis chew, chew, chew.

4. At home or abroad, afar or near,
‘Tis smoke, chew, smoke.
His mouth is stuffed from ear to ear,
Or puffing the stump of a pipe so dear.
His days will end, I verily fear,
In smoke, smoke, smoke.


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Subject: Lyr Add: A WIFE'S COMPLAINT OF HER SMOKING HUSBAND
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 02:46 PM

This poem is obviously related to the above song, but I can't say who copied from whom. They were published in the same year. The text apparently comes from an anonymous source:

Found in The Literary Miscellany for English Readers Abroad and at Home (Nuremberg: Frederic Campe, and London: Williams & Norgate, 1848), page 204:


A WIFE'S COMPLAINT OF HER SMOKING HUSBAND.

He sits in his chair from morn till night
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
At early morn he calls for a light,
He takes his cigar, and with all his might
He puffs and puffs; for his only delight
Is Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!

And he takes to another when that is out,
Till Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
In such dense clouds around him float,
If you saw him, indeed you would think that his throat
Was rather the funnel of some steam boat,
Such Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!

He sits silent all day in his odious fog,
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
I tell him it makes him as dull as a clod,
As a husband he'd be as well under the sod
But his only reply is—a puff, and a nod,
And Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!

The house all over from end to end
Is Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
In whatever room my way I bend,
If I take up his clothes to patch or mend,
Ungrateful odours will ever ascend
Of Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!

At home or abroad, or far or near,
'Tis Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
Every day in the week, every day in the year—
He'll never abandon the habit—that's clear—
And his days will certainly end, I fear,
In Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!

Young ladies, be warn'd by my fate!—and take heed
Ne'er to wed with a fellow who uses the weed;
Far better that husbands you ever should lack, O!
Than marry a man what smokes tobacco!


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Subject: Lyr Add: HARRY RAG (Ray Davies/The Kinks)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 08:18 PM

This was mentioned by AndyG on 07-Jan-00. Lyrics found online and checked by me against a recording.


HARRY RAG*
Words and music by Ray Davies
As recorded by The Kinks on “Something Else,” 1967.

Ah, Tom is young and Tom is bold.
Tom is as bold as the knights of old,
But whenever he gets in a bit of a jam,
There's nothing he won't do to get a Harry rag.

CHORUS: Harry rag, Harry rag,
Do anything just to get a Harry rag.
And he curses himself for the life he's led,
And rolls himself a Harry rag and puts himself to bed.

Ah, Tom's old ma is a dying lass.
Soon they all reckon she'll be pushing up the grass,
And her bones might ache and her skin might sag,
But still she's got the strength to have a Harry rag.

CHORUS: Harry rag, Harry rag,
Do anything just to get a Harry rag.
And she curses herself for the life she's led.
And rolls herself a Harry rag and puts herself to bed.

Ah, bless you, tax man; bless you all.
You may take some but you never take it all,
But if I give it all, I won't feel sad
As long as I got enough to buy a Harry rag.

CHORUS: Harry rag, Harry rag,
Do anything just to get a Harry rag,
And I curse myself for the life I've led,
And roll myself a Harry rag and put myself to bed.

Ah, the smart young ladies of the land
Can't relax without a Harry in their hand,
And they light one up and they boast and brag,
So content because they got a Harry rag.

CHORUS: Harry rag, Harry rag,
Do anything just to get a Harry rag,
And they'll light one and they'll boast and brag,
So content because they got a Harry rag.

CHORUS: Harry rag, Harry rag,
I'll do anything just to get a Harry rag,
And I curse myself for the life I've led
And roll myself a Harry rag and put myself to bed.

- - -
* Harry rag or Harry Wragg, British and Irish rhyming slang for “fag” (cigarette), based on famous jockey Harry Wragg (1902-85). – info from The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 04:42 AM

Stanley Accrington did a great song based on an old joke but I can only remember parts of it. Starts

He was smoking I was choking
And he thought that I was joking
When I politely asked him to desist

It then goes into the smoker claiming it was his right to smoke etc. The last bit starts

I said you've got me thinking
My particular pleasure's drinking...

Goes on to

The byproduct isn't gaseous
It's smelly and it splashes

Then finishes

So I stood on the chair and peed upon his head

Sorry I can't remember more. If I get chance I'll see if I have a recording to post somewhere


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 07:38 AM

Tex Williams - Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) 1947     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_-vNtWLLs


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 04:45 PM

Found it! I am not going to post all the lyrics - I have uploaded it as an MP3 to Google Drive Here

Enjoy and if you want it but can't get it, let me know


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Subject: Lyr Add: ANOTHER PUFF (Jerry Reed)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 05:48 PM

This was mentioned by Gene back on 07-Jan-00. It’s one of those “spoken” songs with guitar accompaniment, sorta like talking blues. The words are interspersed with lots of laughing, coughing, and wheezing, which I have not bothered to document. It’s available on Spotify and YouTube. My transcription.


ANOTHER PUFF
As recorded by Jerry Reed on “Ko-Ko Joe,” 1971.

I know there’s a lot o’ talk goin’ ’round today
’Bout cigarette smoke an’ whittlin’ your life away.

I’ve seen it and I’ve heard it so many times
That finally, it just started to prey on my min’.

I guess it scared me a little bit.
That’s why I decided I’s gon’ quit.

So while I’s sittin’ here formin’ my battle plan,
I took another puff and turned on the fan.

I just set there in my easy chair,
Thought of all the money I’d wasted on cigarettes all these years.

I thought how I’d spend the rest o’ my days
After I kicked this habit my body craves.

Said to myself: “This ain’t gon’ be so tough.”
With that little bit of assurance, I took another puff.

I took a puff, I puffed,
Then I ripped off another puff.

I decided I’d ’bout had enough.
Said, breakin’ this habit’s gon’ be too tough.

Now, I’d give a lot o’ thought to this thing.
If I didn’t smoke cigarettes, I’d feel just like a king.

’Sides, with the price goin’ up ever’ day
I knew I’s just throwin’ all my good money away.

You know, I ain’t lit one in an hour or so.
Just wanted to make sure I could quit, you know.

I was thinkin’ maybe I ought to write all this down,
Put it in a song, kind o’ circulate it aroun’.

Can’t ever tell, it might make a hit,
And that’d help the cause a little bit.

Can you imagine me a hit song writer?
Where’d I put that cigarette lighter?

After all, it’s a habit, and a habit you can break.
Just a little bit o’ will power, that’s all it takes.

Said to myself, “You got to be tough,”
And with that little bit o’ wisdom, I took another puff.

I took a puff, and then a puff,
And I finally ripped off another puff.

I decided, boy, this ain’t gon’ be tough.
… just about had enough.

I’m ’bout ready to quit this rotten habit anyway.
Oh, I think they ought to take it off television. It looks too good!
I like them skinny ones with the filters.
Oh, give it to me! Give it to me!
Cigarettes! I say, if I quit smokin’, what’ll I do?
Maybe I’ll eat.
Yeah, I’ll eat cigarettes!
Oh, iloveitiloveitiloveitiloveitiloveitiloveit!
[person’s name?]… don’t smoke; he smokes logs!
Makes you laugh funny, too.
Oh, my throat scratches!
Oh, I wish I could think o’ somethin’ bad to say ’bout cigarettes!
Boo on cigarettes!
Don’t smoke, don’t smoke, don’t smoke!
You quit smokin’, that’ll leave more for me!
I love it. I love it.
No, I don’t love cigarettes, you know, misunderstand:
I hate cigarettes.
Makes you cough.
When you don’t smoke, it makes you shake.
I don’t know what’s worse, the shake or the cough.
I think I’ll make me a cough shake!
Uh, did you ever smoke?
Oh, I member one time I quit smokin’.
I quit for three months.
My wife left me.
So did my children.
She took my house and left.
It was a mobile home!


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Subject: Lyr Add: SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE (BUT NOT AROUND ME)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Mar 23 - 07:23 PM

Arkie mentioned this song on 07-Jan-00.

According to Billboard magazine, this version was released as a 45-rpm single, Monument 1108, in 1968.


SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE (BUT NOT AROUND ME)
(Merle Travis)
As recorded by Grandpa Jones, found on YouTube.

Now, I’m a feller with a heart o’ gold,
And my heart may be just a little bit old,
But it’s tickin’ fine and I can’t complain none yet,
And the reason for the way the old pump feels,
It ain’t mired down an’ spinnin’ its wheels
In nicotine tar from smokin’ cigarettes.
Nearly ever’body that ever I knew
Goes around a-smokin’ like a stopped-up flue,
Holler-eyed, wheezin’, short o’ breath, an’ pale.
Tomorrow it might be just my luck
To get run over by a two-ton truck,
But I ain’t gonna kill myself a-smokin’ coffin nails.

CHORUS: Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette!
Smoke, smoke, smoke, and when you smoke yourself to death,
You ain’t gonna cough an’ wheeze no more
Over on the hallelujah shore,
Where I understand there ain’t no cigarettes.

The other day I saw a man
All bent over and a-wringin’ his hands
And a-coughin’ so hard I thought his lungs would crack.
Well, his eyes was red and his face was blue,
And I thought his earthly days were through,
So I run up an’ I hit ’im on the back.
Well, he caught his breath and breathed about twice,
Said: “Thanks, old buddy, for savin’ my life.
I was strangled on a tickle in my throat, a smoker’s gift.”
Then he done a thing that got my goat:
He started to scratchin’ in the pockets of his coat
Till he found himself a king-sized cigarette. CHORUS

I’ll tell you somethin’ that ain’t no joke:
I never did, and I never will smoke,
And I don’t give a durn what a lot o’ people think.
A lady I know said: “I think you should,
’Cause cigarette smoke it smells so good.”
Well, it don’t smell good to me; in fact, it stinks.
When you get right down to the truth of it,
Most of the smokers would like to quit,
But they just can’t break the habit, is what they say.
So if you’re like most o’ the smokers I’ve seen,
With a backbone weaker than nicotine,
Would you please just blow the smoke the other way? CHORUS


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 03:19 AM

Here's one that's a song... sort of. It's an anti-smoking animated Public Service Announcement from 1968 recited by James Earl Jones.

The Ballad of Johnny Smoke

Anyone out there remember this one?


Jay


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Subject: Lyr Add: MR. NICOTINE MAN (David C. Perry)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 12:21 PM

Bert mentioned this on 11-Jan-00. Words from the video at YouTube, performed by Winchester/Perry (Christine Winchester and David C. Perry). You can also hear the audio at the Winchester/Perry website, or click here for the mp3 file.


MR. NICOTINE MAN
“A second-hand song about smoking”
Words by David C. Perry, music, “Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan.

[Spoken] Here with a public announcement for the American Tobacco Growers Association in conjunction with the American Cancer Society, is smokesperson, Mr. Bob Dylan.

[Chorus] Hey, Mister Nicotine Man, save a puff for me.
Quitting smoking’s such a drag to do.
Hey. Mister Nicotine Man, save a puff for me.
Sacred cigarette smoke, I’ll come swallowing you.

I tried those sissy cigarettes with hardly any tar,
Six packs today so far,
Plus a pipe and a cigar,
But I’d still walk a mile for a Camel Plain.
My old lady said that when we kiss, I taste like an ashtray.
And I said, “That’s OK,”
And then she moved away.
Well, some folks can’t tell pleasure from pain. [Chorus]

O sweet Virginia leaves, you know, I’d sell my soul for you,
My lungs and larynx too,
Hold my breath till I turn blue.
My heart is pure but the air I breathe’s corrupt.
Though I know Tobacco Road can lead me only to despair,
Well, I don’t really care,
’Cause I’m already there,
And when you’re down this far, you might as well light up. [Chorus]

Though you might hear coughing, hacking, gasping like I can hardly breathe,
Don’t you pay it any heed,
’Cause it ain’t air I need.
Just gi’ me some more weed,
’Cause after all, there’s more to life than breath.
At least it’s somewhat safer than sucking on a gun,
And almost as much fun.
Hell, there’s no real damage done.
The condemned get one last smoke before their death. [Chorus]


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 02:30 PM

Merle Travis sings Smoke Smoke Smoke that Cigarette via YouTube.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 02:44 PM

My memory is trying tease out enough of a song I'm pretty sure Ed McCurdy sang about an evil weed tobacco. It'll come to me eventually so I can look it up. Or someone else will read this and remember it immediately.


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Subject: Lyr Add: TOBACCO SONG (Mike Cross)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 03:13 PM

This song was quoted by Caitrin on 24-Apr-00, and then was mentioned again by an unnamed guest on 17-Nov-07. The tone sounds kinda ironic to me.


TOBACCO SONG
As recorded by Mike Cross on “Irregular Guy,” 2006

Tobacco is an evil weed; it’ll take away your breath,
Stain your teeth and make you weak and burn your lungs to death.

Little kids sneak cigarettes out behind the barn.
It makes them gag and cough because it does them so much harm.

Cigars killed my uncle Phil; we knew someday they’d git him.
He bent over in the street to pick one up and a bus rode by and hit him.

So if you smoke or dip or chew, you’d better get your fill,
’Cause if tobacco don’t get you, then anti-smokers will.


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Subject: Lyr Add: CHOCOLATE CIGARETTES (Tom Russell)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 03:51 PM

An unnamed guest mentioned this on 11-Nov-07:


CHOCOLATE CIGARETTES
As recorded by Tom Russell (with Barrence Whitfield) on “Hillbilly Voodoo,” 2015.

Edith Piaf was the little sparrow; she flew high above the Paris streets,
Saint of the bars and bistros, chanteuse of the tear-stained sheets.
She sang for drunks and sailors who sunk as low as low could get.
I read she kicked a three-pack habit once with chocolate cigarettes.

She didn’t have a smoke though she wanted one,
Didn’t take a drink though it hurt her some.
She stared across the River Seine hummin’ “No Regrets,”
Pullin’ on a chocolate cigarette,
Pullin’ on a chocolate cigarette.

Oh, those chocolate cigarettes! I’ve seen ‘em in my youth,
Right beside the Hershey bars, the Almond Joys and Baby Ruths.
I kicked a two-pack habit once; I won a hundred-dollar bet
With the help of chewing gum and chocolate cigarettes.

I didn’t have a smoke, though I wanted one,
Didn’t take a drink, though it hurt me some.
I followed a little sparrow, hummin’ “No Regrets,”
Pullin on a chocolate cigarette,
Yeah, pullin on a chocolate cigarette.

It’s an Edith Piaf night tonight as I put her records on.
All that smoky passion, in every life of every song!
Broken hearts and wasteful habits, we’ll all survive them yet,
Old passions drowned in coffee grounds and chocolate cigarettes.

She didn’t have a smoke though she wanted one,
Didn’t take a drink though it hurt her some.
She stared across the River Seine hummin’ “No Regrets,”
Pullin’ on a chocolate cigarette.
She didn’t have a smoke though she wanted one,
Didn’t take a drink though it hurt her some.
She stared across the River Seine hummin’ “No Regrets,”
Pullin’ on a chocolate cigarette,
Oh yeah, pullin’ on a chocolate cigarette.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Anti-smoking songs
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 05:04 PM

Lyrics
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Once, I was happy and had a good wife
I had enough money to last me for life
I met with the gal and we went on a spree
She started me smokin' and drinkin' whusky
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Now, I am feeble and broken with age
The lines on my face make a well-written page
I'm leavin' this message, how sad but how true
On women and whusky and what they can do
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Right on the cross at the head of my grave
For women and whusky, here lies a poor slave
Take warning, dear stranger, take warning, dear friend
Then write in big letters, these words at the end
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigareetes and whusky and wild, wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Tim Spencer


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Subject: Lyr Add: IT’S A FREE WORLD (Peggy Seeger)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Mar 23 - 12:03 PM

Irene M mentioned this on 16-Nov-07. You can hear it on YouTube.


IT’S A FREE WORLD
As recorded by Peggy Seeger on “An Odd Collection,” 1996.

I like Mrs. Britches.
I go to Mrs. Britches.
I eat at Mrs. Britches on a Friday for breakfast.
There are only seven tables,
Flowers on the tables,
And smokers at the tables on a Friday.

Now you may think I’m jokin’,
But some smokers when they’re smokin’,
Don’t notice if you’re chokin’ or you’re dyin’.
There’s this one fella, Andy,
A real chain smoker, and he
Blows smoke right at me ’til I’m cryin’.

I asked him quite politely.
In fact, I asked him nicely:
“Would you mind not smokin’ on a Friday?
Don’t like it when I’m eatin’.
Don’t like it when I’m breathin’.
Don’t like it any where or any day.”

He told me: “It’s a habit.
I choose to have it,
And you choose to come here on a Friday,
So you’re the problem, not me,
And if I choose to rock me,
You’ve got no right to stop me ’cause it’s my way.

“’Cause it’s a free world,
Democracy and all that; it’s a free world,
Laissez-faire and all that, and if industry can do it, so can I.”

The smokers cheered him loudly.
He lit another proudly.
As for me, I looked around me for a friend.
I thought of world pollution.
I thought of evolution.
I thought of revolution, but I paid my bill and left.

I thought of Mother Jones; I though of Rosa Parks,
Sojourner Truth, and Rosa Luxembourg; it’s them I have to thank.
Guerrilla folks have taught me: if freedom you are wanting,
If head-on fights are daunting. use the flank.

So I ate corn on Sunday.
I ate beans on Monday.
On Tuesday, leeks and lentils made a high day.
I tell you, I’m not jokin’.
By Thursday, I was floatin’,
But I’m ready for the smokin’ on a Friday.

I sat down next to Andy.
I smiled at Andy.
He lit up; I let off a beauty.
I sat and read the paper,
And chatted with a waiter,
And let my compass maker do its duty.

Beans are for pitching.
Leeks are malediction.
Sweet corn is for density and lentils for duration.
The recipe’s been tested.
It hasn’t yet been bested.
Add cabbage for perfume and concentration.

Andy he turns yellow.
The atmosphere is mellow.
The percussion section’s way over the top.
It soon put Andy’s fag out.
Andy hung the flag out.
Andy choked and swore and muttered: "Stop!"

I told him: “It’s a habit.
I choose to have it,
And you choose to come here on a Friday,
And if you don’t like it,
I guess you’ll have to hike it,
’Cause I’ll fight for farter’s rights until I die.

“’Cause it’s a free world,
Liberty and all that; it’s a free world,
Selfishness and all that; and if Andy can do it, so can I.”

He changed his day to Thursday.
I changed my day to Thursday.
He changed his day to Wednesday; so did I.
The waitress she was cheerin’.
Her bronchitis it was clearin’,
And she was volunteerin’ for the Tuesday.

I like Mrs. Britches.
I go to Mrs. Britches.
I breathe at Mrs. Britches on a Friday for breakfast.
There are only seven tables,
Flowers on the tables,
And no smokers at the tables any day.

’Cause it’s a free world,
Strategy and all that; it’s a free world,
Crude comedy and all that; but if I can do it, so can anybody.


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Subject: Lyr Add: DAD BLAME ANYTHING A MAN CAN’T QUIT
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Mar 23 - 06:19 PM

You can hear this at YouTube.


DAD BLAME ANYTHING A MAN CAN’T QUIT
As recorded by Roger Miller on “Words and Music,” 1966.

[1] I’m a two-pack-a-day man; I smoke like a fiend,
Like a burned-out bearin’ in a bad machine.
I can’t breathe in the mornin’ till I get myself a cigarette lit.
I say: “Dad* blame anything a man* can’t quit.”

[2] I’m a brand-new newlywed, married again:
Nine times previous and this makes ten.
I ought to be kicked so hard till I can hardly walk around or sit.
I say: “Dad* blame anything a man can’t quit.”

[3] Still, I keep it up, keep it up, and do it all the time.
Ev’ry now and then I make up my mind
To give it up, give it up, throw it away.
I us’ly change my mind later on up in the day.

[Repeat 1, 3, 1, then scat.]

- - -
* He sings “Dad” as 3 syllables/notes: “Da-ha-had.”—and the first time he sings “man,” it has 2 syllables: “ma-han.”

Roger Miller died in 1972 of lung and throat cancer.


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