PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12)
By:
August 12, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Country Music of the Fifties (1954–1963)! Series edited by Josh Glenn. Qobuz playlist here.
PATSY CLINE | THREE CIGARETTES IN AN ASHTRAY | 1957
In the heyday of bar jukeboxes, patrons steered the mood of the night with a handful of quarters. Jukeboxes had built-in popularity meters, tallied by salesmen when restocking 45s. The songs on heavy rotation were those which got feet shuffling, hips swinging, and eventually, couples embracing. Patsy Cline’s trifecta of heartbreak hits — “Crazy,” “Walkin’ After Midnight,” “I Fall to Pieces” — were top of the charts. Once in a blue moon someone would give up a dime for a lesser-known b-side Patsy Cline, like “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray,” written by Eddie Miller and W.S. Stevenson.
Two cigarettes in an ashtray
My love and I in a small cafe
Cline sung this brief song with measured, evocative simplicity. The two cigarettes recall steamy couples in noir films, as one lover lit two cigarettes, passing one, keeping one. Cline’s slow, crystal croon moves on from love’s embrace to parse out the next lyric, the clear danger of two cigarettes being joined by a third. Happiness has an interloper. Three on a match. Three strikes you’re out. Three’s a crowd.
Then a stranger came along
And everything went wrong
Now there’s three cigarettes in the ashtray
Even if you never went to bars, nor smoked cigarettes, most humans with a heart ended up in some part of this song’s inspired math triad, when two plus one inevitably, strangely, equals one. A hard-luck trifecta. Twin streams of smoke curling up past lips, ending with a red glow of a slow burning ember at the tip of a lone cigarette, alone again.
I watched her take him from me
And his love is no longer my own
Now they are gone and I sit alone
And watch one cigarette burn away
Only when Cline repeats the final stanza does she allow her voice to break, drawing out the sadness in the lyrics. When k.d. lang sang “Three Cigarettes” decades later, she added props. Watch her reenact the trifecta of singer, cigarette, and ashtray. K.d. homages Patsy as she, too, sings with a steady heartbeat, only allowing herself to feel the rageful abandonment in “no longer my own” then deepen the final line “and watch one cigarette burn away” by rolling into an animistic growl. K.d. lang glares down at the prop cigarette as if it were not just a stranger, but the dreaded stranger who broke Patsy Cline’s heart.
PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn. Nadine Hubbs on Marty Robbins’ EL PASO | Elizabeth Nelson on Dave Dudley’s SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD | Lynn Peril on Jean Chapel’s WELCOME TO THE CLUB | David Cantwell on Porter Wagoner’s MY BONFIRE | Will Hermes on Johnny Cash’s RING OF FIRE | Mimi Lipson on Loretta Lynn’s I’M A HONKY TONK GIRL | Charles Hughes on Roger Miller’s YOU DON’T WANT MY LOVE | Eric Weisbard on Lefty Frizzell’s THE LONG BLACK VEIL | Steacy Easton on Jean Shepard’s A SATISFIED MIND | Josh Glenn on Johnny Cash’s THE REBEL — JOHNNY YUMA | Carlo Rotella on Buck Owens’ CLOSE UP THE HONKY TONKS | Annie Nocenti on Patsy Cline’s THREE CIGARETTES IN AN ASHTRAY | Douglas Wolk on Lucky Starr’s I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE | Will Groff on Ray Price’s NIGHT LIFE | Jonny Auping on Willie Nelson’s CRAZY | Brian Berger on Ernest Tubb’s THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS | Jason Grote on Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys’ DARK HOLLOW | Peter Doyle on Willie Nelson’s FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY | Sam Glenn on Johnny Cash’s BIG RIVER | Mark Richardson on Elvis Presley’s BLUE MOON | Adam McGovern on Elvis Presley’s BLACK STAR / FLAMING STAR | Chris Spurgeon on Ricky Nelson’s BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY | Stephen Thomas Erlewine on George Jones’ WHITE LIGHTNING | Devin McKinney on George Hamilton IV’s ABILENE | Annie Zaleski on Patsy Cline’s WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT.
ALSO SEE: DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25 of our favorite Country records from 1964–1973) | & more Country at HILOBROW, including short appreciations of Gene Pitney, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Buck Owens, George Jones, June Carter Cash, Charley Pride, and many others.
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