Dani Stocksdale’s “Cigarette Rush” drifts through synth-kissed indie pop and aching metaphor, transforming the wish to linger in someone’s life into a tender portrait of longing, rejection, and release.

 follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist

Stream: “Cigarette Rush” – Dani Stocksdale

Longing has a way of making even the briefest trace feel impossible to let go.

“Cigarette Rush” is a synth-kissed indie pop confession from Dani Stocksdale’s upcoming EP, Whatever This Is. In a song that feels like peace, the artist shares the contrary: A quiet grief and a desperation to belong to someone. As part of the Mexican-American artist’s growing world, the single opens another door to reveal her atmosphere and her lyrically profound music and mind.

Go to the balcony just for a sec
When you come back
you have her on your breathe
Wanna say something but wanna respect
It′s all so new keep it close to my chest

In-between your fingers
In your kiss it lingers
Say it in a whisper

The track begins with a touch of synth-pop, directly drawing the listener into Stocksdale’s thoughts. “When you come back you have her on your breath” is the second line of the song, and it already shows that there is a need and longing that can recalls the melancholy of Olivia Rodrigo’s music. Even in a delicately electric production, Stocksdale’s specialty is lyricism and how metaphors act as a conduit for feelings and experiences.

Cigarette rush
I wanna be there for you
Love me enough
Just something to use

You pick me up, you me pick me up
Cigarette rush, cigarette rush
You pick me up, you me pick me up
Cigarette rush, I sit on your tongue

Made for a late-night drive, a bedroom lament, or a thought-immersed walk, “Cigarette Rush” pushes emotions into something concrete while hooking the listener, keeping them in the line between reality and imagination. The chorus, “cigarette rush / I wanna be that for you / love me enough / just something to use,” is sung in the 25-year-old’s soft vocals, whispering a wish to be wanted every time, all the time.

Vulnerability sits in every gently hushed note of the song, especially in the chorus, accompanied by the harsh reality of not being the first choice, the main addiction, as well as the illusion surrounding the person this song is for.

Wrap me up and put me in-between your teeth
Keep me with you in your front pocket please
Need me in the morning
Need me when you sleep
Need me when your head hurts
Need me when you drink

In the mellow, quiet tone set for this single, Stocksdale makes sure the feeling is still intense.

The singer/songwriter mentioned in a previous interview that everyone was smoking cigarettes when she moved to Los Angeles. That became the idea for the song: wanting to be something that lingers, to be a constant in a person’s life and world. Delving further into the rush, it represents elation and intensity that, in fact, are not meant to last forever. Eventually, the cigarette rush can be hurtful, even when that moment of euphoria is always desired to remain.

I’m in-between your fingers,
wish that you would linger
Say it in a whisper

Cigarette rush,
I want to be there for you
Love me enough
Just something to use
You pick me up, you me pick me up
Cigarette rush, cigarette rush
You pick me up, you me pick me up
Cigarette rush, I sit on your tongue

The bridge and outro set an even more intimate tone lyrically, while the melody has a shinier take, as if it were reaching toward hope, yet the message is just the opposite: “I’ll never be that for you.”

At the very end of the song, the faint sound of an exhale can be heard. Is it from a smoker? Is it from the singer herself?

Perhaps whatever persisted has been let go of at last.

Late night we’re talking
I tell you things that I harbored
You don′t seem interested,
thought you were into it
So I showed you my body,
’cause I thought that’s what you wanted
You don’t seem interested,
broke me so intimate

Cigarette rush,
I′ll never be there for you
Am I enough, not even something to use

— —

:: stream/purchase Cigarette Rush here ::

:: connect with Dani Stocksdale here ::

— —

Stream: “Cigarette Rush” – Dani Stocksdale

— — — —

Connect to Dani Stocksdale on
Facebook, 𝕏, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © courtesy of the artist

:: Today’s Song(s) ::

 follow our daily playlist on Spotify

:: Stream Dani Stocksdale ::