Pink Cigarette

This song focuses around a man who was left by his wife/girlfriend/lover. It's not clear if she cheated on him. Many think it is implied by the line "Your kiss goes everywhere, touches everything, but me." It's also possible that it is an expression of his feeling isolated after losing her love.

Whether she cheated on him, or simply grew tired of and fell out of love with him, it's implied by the "hush me, touch me" lines that she was cold towards him while they were together, both physically and emotionally. The touch me is obviously a plea for physical contact, so it stands to reason that the "hush me" is a plea for emotional contact. He is asking her to stop him crying, screaming, what-have-you; to quiet and console him.

The burns on the sheets are both literally from her cigarettes and a figurative representations of every time she has hurt him, scarred him, ruined him.

"All these years I've been your ashtray [but not today]" Though he sees her as having hurt him and used him, he is refusing to let his hurt continue. At the same time, he either blames himself for her inability to love him or is ashamed by his inability to move on ("I'm hoping the smoke/ Hides the shame I've got on my face").

The "perfume, the wind and the leaves" &c. lines are memories. "Cognac and broken glass" links later on to "Lipstick, a slap on my cheek/ Your eyes cried at last/ told me everything I was afraid to ask." and sound to me like a fight between them. Most probably their last fight where the relationship-ending confession came out.

When she leaves him and he is alone, he finds a smoked cigarette in their bed with her lipstick on the filter making it a "pink cigarette." This item both represents all he has left of her, and something so insignificant that routinely got closer to her than he ever was able to, and it haunts him.

"Now I'm dressed in white/ And you've burned me for the last time [this ain't the last time]/ You'll find a note and you'll see my silhouette" He's pure, purged of her and the constant longing he feels for her love and closeness. Or at least he will be soon, once he kills himself. The method? Lighting himself on fire in her bed. It is at once a tribute to how she has hurt him in the past, makes him closer to being the thing she was closest to (her cigarettes) in an effort to finally make her see him, and mimics the way she left her memory in his bed when she left by creating a burn in her sheets shaped like him.

The countdown is him screaming as he's being burned alive and waiting for her to find what will be left of his corpse when she returns home. The beeping is a heart monitor that eventually flat-lines.

Viciously romantic song

You all pretty much have it covered. Call me lame, but this song kinda made me teary-eyed when I first heard it...the lyrics and the idea are sad, but brilliant. Yeah...Mike Patton is a god.

My brother told me a basic premise a few years ago that he heard from I a friend I believe, I was always led to believe this was the meaning... I have expanded upon what my brother told me, and did a bit of research... But, it's hard to say what it means really, everyone seems to have a different answer. So who fkin knows eh?

without further adieu:

The singer is at his place alone. His significant other has recently left him, leaving him very depressed. The only physical sign left that shows she was ever even in his life at all is a half smoked cigarette, with only her pink lipstick left behind, staining the filter.

And so he decides he's going to take his life. He's basically just so in love but so crazy and selfish at the same time. He's going to kill himself just to make her feel the guilt and 'prove' how much he loved her.

 And before he does kill he self, he smokes the half smoked cigarette she left behind, inhaling her and tasting her lips one more time... And then the countdown, and he shoots himself in the head.

....Well, that's what I gather from it anyway. I doubt that's correct, might be close though. Who knows actually what he meant word per word when he wrote it.

That's actually a heart monitor flatlining at the end. And I think that what's happening is he is waitting to hang himself so that when she comes home, she finds him dead, as he tells us. Hence the scream at the end. K!

I know sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but is a pink cigarette really EVER just a pink cigarette? I don't think it is here, it's a symbol of the speaker's masculinity, which is threatened by his lover's promiscuity and abuse.

She clearly wears the pants in the relationship, alternately ignoring and abusing him. He is penetrated, never penetrator; her lips touch everything--perhaps penetrated by others--but not him; he is touched instead by "a slap on my cheek" and penetrated by her metaphorical cigarette-phallus in the line, "I've been your ashtray." Finally, she abandons him, leaving his useless "pink cigarette" on the bed in a last insult. He needs to take action to reverse the situation, but he is conflicted because he actually desires her abuse: his continual refrain, "Hush me / Touch me" makes the link between his need for attention and repression clear.

His only means of escaping this situation is self-destruction. He can thus fulfill his need to regain his masculinity by debasing others as well as his need to be debased himself. The reference to a "sillhouette" indicates he hangs himself, while the "smoke" indicates immolation. Either way, he is conflicted to the end about his decision. Like many suicides, he fantasizes about her reaction to his death, as in the closing countdown, "There's just X hours left until you'll find me dead." This almost giddy anticipation is balanced, however, by his fear of her gaze: "I'm hoping the smoke / Hides the shame I've got on my face." Deep down he fears that his self-annihilation will not restore his manhood, instead heaping shame on top of shame.

Amazing song! Too good, the live version is so powerful at the end when Mike Patton goes 'I found a... PINK cigarette...'

no alternate meaning, just a straight-up description

Really love the fan video for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwWQYg7aS5o

Hmm hypo, you might be right. I just looked closer at the lyrics, and now I realize that the guy light himself on fire with the ladies cigarette in a suicide attempt. (i.e. the smoke will hide the shame, you'll find my silhouette (the man's black ashes) ). Thx for showing me the light :)