Smoking and the Image of Cool

How many of you, for those who are smokers or were smokers or at least have ever tried smoking at some time or another, did so for the first time in some sort of live musical context? There is a relationship between music and smoking that together forms this iconic image of a cool renegade; a badass rocker decked out in subcultural fashion trends of the day, hacking on a cigarette as a symbol of independence, adult-status, and resistance. Or at least there has been for years. Our knowledge of the health dangers and threats to smoking are, I believe, having a positive effect on young peoples’ decision to not smoke cigarettes. There is another side to the coin, however, one that shines a little irony in the face of the noble marketing effort, and that is: the more successful anti-smoking campaigns have been at promoting the idea that smoking kills rather than looks cool, the more the marginal youth seeking to resist all forms of mainstream society is tempted to indulge in the targeted habit.

I would love to be able to survey all the readers of this article and ask, “what exactly came into your head when you read the title of this article? What image popped into mind? Was it a particular musician sitting there with a cigarette dangling from his lips while he soloed away on his Stratocaster a là Keith Richards or Jimmy Page? Was it an iconic black and white image taken from the golden age of the jazz years in Harlem—Lady Day standing at the mic in a smoke-engulfed Minton’s or Thelonious Monk sitting at the piano with an ashtray and burning cigarette next to the high C? Was it a badass Sid Vicious, Patti Smith, or Joey Ramone leaning on the brick outside of CBGBs, one knee bent with Chuck Taylor flat against the wall—the cigarette signifying the ultimate “Fuck You” to both the camera and you, it’s viewer. Or was it a solemn and lonely Tom Waits or Willie Nelson, playing to a crowd of four on a chicken wire and Christmas lights lit stage in a roadhouse somewhere off Highway 87? Regardless of what your vision was, in my opinion there is a certain romanticism and genuine hipness to the scenes I just laid out for you that is emphasized by the cigarette. I don't think you would be reading this blog if you felt otherwise. Replace the cigarette in each image with a carrot juice, and let's face it, the icon just lost its majestic power. Where is the "edge" in a vegan shake?

(As a side note: Did you ever stop to ask where the cigarettes are in hip hop, soul, classical, or pop music? It’s strange how some genres of music embrace the cigarette while others seem to abandon it altogether.)

Enough of the rock stars; let’s shift to the crowd. In an article written by Columbia University professor of Ethnomusicology Aaron Fox, the Dean of the Department contends, “[M]usic is like a cigarette…. ‘[they] are bad [and] that’s why they are good.’” Fox argues the disdain for smoking lies in the contradiction of a cigarette – what makes it so desired is the fact that it is so shunned against. This is precisely why smoking a cigarette becomes, what Fox calls, a ‘sublime’ act; because of our learned hatred for this small object we are taught will kill us, it exists in our conscious as an object representative of intense desire. In the case of the rebel, that desire gets inverted and becomes a desire “for” rather than a desire “against.” This passion for the subversive signifiers a cigarette instills is similar to the passion youth hold for specific musical genres as well; hence the marriage between the two forms is born. Being a member of a deviant subculture that is only admired by those within its sphere, and accordingly hated by everyone else, perpetuates the individuals desire for taste and expression of that said membership. Therefore the music, like the cigarette, signifies an embracement of those abhorred symbols – it’s good to love what is bad to love.

Fox takes the analogy of smoking and music one step further. “Smoking in a group of smokers is profoundly sociable,” he claims. Let us not forget our history of tobacco and remind ourselves that smoking came from Native Americans who would share pipes as part of a communal, social event. Music only enriches the experience of this gathering. Here, I find it necessary to quote Professor Fox at length: “The sociability of smokers is mediated by elaborate rituals of offering cigarettes to others (or conversely, “bumming” a smoke), of handling cigarettes performatively, of lighting both one’s own cigarette and those of others, and of organizing the rhythm of conversation around the rhythms of smoking.” This adds to the perception of “cool” especially for the impressionable adolescent who admires and emulates his/her elders of the same subcultural medium.

To the chagrin of parents, medical professionals, and anti-smoking campaigners worldwide, I argue that, as unfortunate as it may be, smoking as “cool” is an image that will never fade. In fact, like many social tropes, the more smoking is pushed to the margins of mass society the more it will be sought after as a symbol of the anti-normal. The only silver lining in all of this may lie in an argument supporting the necessity to address global overpopulation.

The citations for this article were from Aaron Fox, “White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: Country As “Bad” Music,” in Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate. eds. Christopher Washburne and Maiken Derno (New York: Routledge, 2004) pp. 39-61.