“Cigarette Daydreams” by Cage the Elephant is representative of a fiery, teenage first love. A daydream is defined as pleasant thoughts or images that distract you from reality. A cigarette is an addictive substance that will eventually kill you. The title is a metaphor for a toxic relationship where the two lovers don’t want to wake up from this daydream because they know their relationship will inevitably fall apart.
I love this song, and not just for the innocent, melancholy melody between the guitar and piano. For me, this song defines what it means to be seventeen and in love. I know that this was only a year ago, but one day it won’t be just a year ago, and when I need to remember what it meant to be young and reckless again I’ll listen to this song. When I was 17, everything was so unsure. I didn’t know who I was or what I was going to do with my life. Seventeen is that gray area when you’re a kid on the brink of adulthood.
In the music video, the main singer and his actual wife are having some kind of emotional distress in their relationship. At the end of the video, a car lights on fire, and they watch it burn. This is symbolic of a reckless relationship, where neither person is at fault, but you don’t know how to fix the relationship so all that is left to do is watch it burn to the ground right in front of your eyes. The chorus goes “You can drive all night, looking for the answers in the pouring rain. You wanna find peace of mind looking for the answer.” When a relationship starts to fall apart we often find ourselves looking for the flaw or the answer to how it ended. However, sometimes no matter how hard we look, there just isn’t an answer. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is walk away. And sometimes it’s the only thing you can do.
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