Songfacts®:

• "20 Cigarettes" unfolds over the course of a single, steamy summer night in Nashville. Morgan Wallen narrates a one-night stand between him and a woman he meets in a bar on Demonbreun, a well-known street in Nashville's entertainment district. Wallen starts the night with a full pack of cigarettes and, over the course of the nocturnal encounter, watches them burn away one by one, each smoke signaling a moment of connection. The whole evening plays out like a country song crossed with a Raymond Carver story: sparse, smoky, and ending in a truck bed. By morning, the girl is gone, vanished like the last plume from his 20th cigarette.
• Blake Pendergrass (Morgan Wallen's "Ain't That Some" and "Sunrise"), Chase McGill (Kane Brown's "Lose It," Jordan Davis' "Next Thing You Know"), Josh Miller (Bebe Rexha's "Meant to Be," Morgan Wallen's "Lies Lies Lies" and Chris LaCorte (Sam Hunt's "23" Tucker Wetmore's "Wind Up Missin' You") wrote the song. While Wallen did not contribute to the writing of "20 Cigarettes," its themes resonate with his signature storytelling style.
• Though the title might tempt you to picture Wallen as a Marlboro Man in a backward cap, there's no evidence he's a regular smoker. In interviews, he's been candid about his addictive tendencies but hasn't singled out cigarettes as a vice. His 2016 song "Chain Smokin'" uses smoking more as metaphor than confession, while "One Thing At A Time" does find him relapsing after giving up smoking, but he's telling a story rather than recounting a real-life habit. "20 Cigarettes" seems chosen for its narrative potency, not because Wallen's been chain-lighting Camels behind Tootsie's Orchid Lounge.
  
  Carrie Underwood's "Smoke Break" is another story song about smoking sung by a nonsmoker.
• Produced by Joey Moi, the track rolls along with contributions from seasoned studio musicians: Jerry Roe on drums, Jimmie Lee Sloas on bass, Tom Bukovac on electric guitar, and Bryan Sutton on acoustic.