Cigarettes & Alcohol

Is it my imagination
Or have I finally found something worth living for?
I was looking for some action
But all I found was cigarettes and alcohol

You could wait for a lifetime
To spend your days in the sunshine
You might as well do the white line
Cos when it comes on top . . .

You gotta make it happen!

Is it worth the aggravation
To find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?
It's a crazy situation
But all I need are cigarettes and alcohol!

You could wait for a lifetime
To spend your days in the sunshine
You might as well do the white line
Cos when it comes on top . . .

You gotta make it happen! 

Oasis, Cigarettes and Alcohol, 1994

Ah, gentle readers, your MatchGirl has been spending a bit of time living in the past lately.  Having deep memories of times gone by.  Not longing for them, not by any means, but most certainly thinking of those times.  

With kind of a sense of wonder.

Watching VH1 Classic the other day (yes, I am old enough that the songs I adored in college are now shown on VH1 Classic) I heard this song again.  Cigarettes and Alcohol, by Oasis (before Wonderwall.  Before most of you, dear readers, had ever hear of them).  This song is the lament of all youth - thinking that they are wiser than they are, thinking that the life they have ahead is nothing but a bore.  Thinking that there is nothing to do but get drunk and do drugs and live for today because tomorrow is not worth very much.

And, no matter the time period, the "youth of today" always feel that way.

At the time that album came out, the economy in Britain was in the crapper.  From Wikipedia:

The song proclaims the inherent appeal of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs as a remedy to the banality and seemingly futile nature of the working class life. Lyrics such as "Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?" tapped into the mood of many in the mid-1990s (when released) as well as a common sentiment today.

Upon first hearing the song, the man who discovered the band, Alan McGee, claimed that the song was one of the greatest societal statements anyone had made in the past 25 years.

Anyway, dear ones, your MatchGirl hates to dissect poetry.  I like to hear it, to feel it, to really listen to it and to let it take me somewhere.  I feel this way about most art.  Sure, I spent a lot of years reading art theory and studying paintings.  Sure, I belong to a book club.  It's because I like discourse, not dissection.

That said, I heard this song the other day and he reminded me not only of being, um, young(er), but of the right now.  Of the economic situation.  Of how hard it is to find a job and how sometimes you just want to say "fuck it" and throw in the towel because there doesn't seem to be anything out there worth the time or effort.  There are so few jobs (and, let be serious, men) out there that sometimes it just seems like it would be easier to just give up.

Not that I'm going to.

It's not my nature.

But I might keep the early 90s BritPop on a loop for a while.