B.Snipes – Cigarettes and Sad Songs (2021)
Singer-songwriter B.Snipes delivers a sobering and thought-provoking acoustic ballad about a woman going through dark times in his latest release, ‘Cigarettes and Sad Songs’. B.Snipes’s unique, piercing folk vocals stand out in the track which details a woman who “shakes off” her memories every night and tries to “turn her heart on with cigarettes and sad songs”.
B.Snipes began writing songs at the age of 13 after his father gave him his first guitar. His childhood years were spent living in Southeast Tennessee and the mountains of North Georgia. Formidable memories growing up with beautiful surroundings and nature are ever-present in the simplicity and earnestness of his latest track, as is his subtle yet charming bluegrass drawl.
The song starts with a guitar being strummed at a middling pace, the musician’s opening line is abrupt and pulls the listener in – “she’s taking all her clothes off and trying to change her mind’. There is a mystery that forms throughout the song about who the unnamed woman is, why is she “screaming in the wild winds until her face turns blue” and why is “she dancing like she’s broken”.
The song picks up with drums and a catchy guitar lead and its musical elements give off an easy-going care-free vibe with soothing backing harmonies accompanying – a world away from B.Snipes’s lyrics. He takes care in his use of language which is at times drawn from an older America of metaphor and imagery but meets a rockier, darker more modern edge with an interlude alluding to the woman’s hell, “there’s a knife and it cuts you open, makes you feel like your on display”.
The release sounds personal and will lead many to think of someone they know or themselves in pain. It acts as a window into another person’s soul and the dark turbulence that swirls within.
Find out more about B.Snipes on his website, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify
