Cigarette

Album: El Rio (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • Frankie Ballard recorded this Kip Moore, Chris Stapleton and Jaren Johnston penned song for his El Rio album. He told CMT News: "We're all good friends, and we've all been writing songs and trying to make something coming out of Nashville. And I'm proud to be the person that got to record this song and put it on an album. I just hope that I did it justice. I know I wrenched on it as hard and as long as I could to get it where it is. But we'll see what happens with that tune. The future is still wide open with that song."
  • Ballard recorded a video to accompany the song featuring a blonde dancer on a pole. He explained to Taste of Country: "That song is about lust. Some people try to bundle up with love and really lust is a different thing. It's an 'L' word but it's a different thing. That's why we went that way in the video with the dancers."
  • Co-writer Kip Moore was inspired to write this song when he saw the lipstick that a woman had left on her cigarette. Moore explained to CMT News that he had taken a smoke break during his songwriting session with Chris Stapleton and Jaren Johnston when "a fairly attractive girl put out a cigarette right beside me."

    He added: "I saw the lipstick around the butt, and I just started singing that chorus in my head."

    Moore returned to the songwriting session inspired. "I sang some of the chorus immediately, and they both loved it," he recalled. "I was kind of playing the guitar riff. Then Jaren spruced it up, and it just took off. Chris jumped on the melody, and it just became a really cool collaboration that day. We all had a blast writing that song."
  • Moore admits to "a little bit of regret on my part" for not recording the song himself on his Wild Ones album. He said: "I had a lot of songs to choose from on my plate. I think I had written so many new songs that those kind of took precedence over that song. But I've always loved it. I'm glad to see an artist like Frankie do it justice."

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