Music To Quit Smoking To

"Weak and Powerless" by A Perfect Circle & "11th Hour" by Lamb of God

Regrettably, smoking has become a problem for me. Over the past year or so, I've taken comfort in cigarettes because they offered an immediate release from the stresses and nuances of being a twenty-two-year-old stuck between the end of his college experience (sort of) and the beginning of his career. I'm not ashamed or apologetic about smoking, but I'm certainly not proud of it, either. By the way, this is the closest I will ever come to writing about "my feelings" on this blog, so if that's your thing, then read this post closely. Mercifully, I've yet to advance to chain smoking, so I figured it's as good a time as any to kick the habit. I'm almost done with a memorably long and uneventful summer, but somehow I'm smoking about half as much as I did back in May. Keeping this in mind, as well as the fact that I start school next week, it only makes sense that I take the next logical step: quitting completely. 

It also doesn't hurt that I finally got to smoke Lucky Strikes one more time.

It's August. The Summer doldrums are coming to a close and the Fall, with offerings of graduate accounting courses, football games and new Mastodon music, will be closer at the end of this post than it is right now. Any stress that comes my way will be easier to manage with the strict regimen of a full schedule (Trust me, this makes more sense than you think.) and the comfort of being able to watch Tom Brady & Co. win games and Arian Foster do "namaste" bows and rack up those fantasy points for the South Georgia 229ers.

Anyone who gives interviews in an imaginary pterodactyl language
will always have a place on my fantasy team.

Just like anything else that happens in my life, the quest to conquer the nicotine bug will be accompanied by the appropriate soundtrack. "Weak and Powerless" is a softer song built around a driving bass line and Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan's moody voice. The song is about drug addiction, and a cursory glance at the lyrics will suggest as much; also, the weird music video plays into that theme.

"11th Hour" is a haunting song about the lonely perils of alcoholism. The brooding lyrics and creepy guitar harmonics have made this song one of my favorites; only "Walk With Me In Hell" has more plays on my iTunes. It's one of several standout tracks from the seminal As The Palaces Burn, the album on which Lamb of God became Lamb of God. 

Before I post the videos and incredible lyrics, (Read the f***ing lyrics. They're probably better than anything else you or I will come across, save for tomorrow's Saturday Song and a few Jesse Leach tracks.) I'd like to reaffirm the fact that I'm serious about quitting cigarettes and that I will succeed. I honestly hope that you enjoy these songs and take them to heart (srs). Oh, and by the way, there's a reason that Lamb of God is the most popular and respected metal band out there today. More on that tomorrow. Enjoy.

Weak and Powerless Music Video:

Weak and Powerless Live (2010):

Lyrics:

Tilling my own grave to keep me level
Jam another dragon down a hole
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren
One that pushes me along and leaves me so

Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless over you

Someone feed the monkey while I dig in search of China
White as Dracula as I approach the bottom

Little angel go away
Come again some other day
The devil has my ear today
I'll never hear a word you say
He promised I would find a little solace
And some piece of mind
Whatever just as long as I don't feel so

Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless
over you 

11th Hour Music Video:

11th Hour Live (2004):

11th Hour Live (2007):

Lyrics:

The hour of reckoning draws near
Judgment day is here and gone
Sweetly she draws me into her arms
A liquid embrace to chase the day way.
Sedate Numb Deaf and Dumb
Stumbling into solitude.
A clouded judgment day is fueled.
Take me under your black wings
Mark my words and remember me.
So sweetly she shucks away at my time
So sweetly she draws me nigh
Closer and closer towards never ending sleep
Spin the bottle
Kiss only the bottle.
The dark mistress of many, beholden to none
Slips a ring of needles around your arm in an engagement
Eternal engagement
Never consummated.
Take me under your black wings
Mark my words and remember me.
Destroyer of senses.
So take as needed for the pain
Another gray morning dawns across an ashen sky.
My sweet demoness beckons me
Ever again and again and again and again.
The dark mistress of many, beholden to none
My sweet demoness beckons me
Ever again and again and again and again and again.
Take me under your black wings.
Jacked up on the taste of self-destruction.