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Cigarettes & Alcohol

"Cigarettes & Alcohol"
Oasis' Cigarettes & Alcohol single cover.gif
Single by Oasis
from the album Definitely Maybe
B-side "I Am the Walrus" (live)
"Listen Up"
"Fade Away"
Released 10 October 1994
Format CD, 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl, cassette
Recorded Clear Studios, Manchester, 1994
Genre Alternative rock, Britpop, hard rock, glam rock
Length 4:48
Label Creation
Writer(s) Noel Gallagher
Producer(s) Oasis, Mark Coyle & Owen Morris
Oasis singles chronology
"Live Forever"
(1994)
"Cigarettes & Alcohol"
(1994)
"Whatever"
(1994)
Definitely Maybe track listing

"Cigarettes & Alcohol" is a song by English rock band Oasis, written by Noel Gallagher. It was released as the fourth single from their debut album Definitely Maybe, and their second to enter the UK top ten in the United Kingdom, peaking at number 7 (three places higher than "Live Forever"), eventually spending 35 weeks on the charts, re-entering the Top 75 on several occasions until 1997.

Whereas earlier singles "Supersonic" and "Shakermaker" had used psychedelic imagery, and "Live Forever" used softer chords and tender lyrics, "Cigarettes & Alcohol" was the first single to demonstrate the rougher musical attitude that Oasis appeared to be promoting. 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?" taps into the common sentiment of western disenchantment that was particularly common in the mid-1990s.

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

The song was the second case in which Oasis was accused of plagiarism, the first being the song "Shakermaker". The main riff of the song is purportedly "borrowed" from "Get It On" by T. Rex and "Little Queenie" by Chuck Berry, and bears a similarity to the opening of Humble Pie's cover of "C'mon Everybody".

The song was released with three B-sides: a cover version of The Beatles' "I Am The Walrus"; "Listen Up", a six-minute slow rocker musically similar to Supersonic; and the popular, slightly punk-styled "Fade Away", whose wistful lyrics are about the destruction of "the dreams we have as children" (this phrase was used as the title of Noel Gallagher's first live solo album). All these songs appeared on the compilation The Masterplan. An acoustic version of "Fade Away" was released on The Help Album charity compilation, and subsequently on the band's 1998 single "Don't Go Away".


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