Cage the Elephant - Cigarette Daydreams Lyrics Meaning

TLDR Cigarette daydreams is about Matt talking about depression and him trying to help a girl who is depressed but only gets pushed away

This song is about a girl who is in a deep depression and how the singer is seeing right through them. As Matt once mentioned in an interview this song and the entire album in general is about painful honesty and it is clear in this song. The title of the song describes how she would turn to smoking and isolation to try and cope with problems she simply can't handle.

She tries to hide her problems by shielding herself away from people as apparent in the first verse "
I can see you standing next to me In and out somewhere else right now You sigh, look away"
however the singer sees her pain
"I can see it clear as day Close your eyes, so afraid Hide behind that baby face"

The chorus refers to her searching for answers in isolation and "daydreaming" which will obviously not answer her loneliness and sense of loss. Which the singer points out by saying sarcastically "You can drive all night Looking for the answers in the pouring rain"

There are also hints this person may not be in the singers life anymore as in the second verse. He states "Funny how it seems like yesterday" before she goes on to run away from her problems in isolation. It also seems in this encounter when he proceeded to follow her she pushed him off "So sweet with a mean streak Nearly brought me to my knees"

Cage the Elephant has touched on this topic before especially in this album. The similar theme of the painful irony of loneliness. The feeling of loneliness only makes us want to run away and hide out of fear that we will be hurt should we open up. This only leads us into basking in our own misery. This was also touched on in a sense of self reflection in the song telescope.

Which is why the last line is so painful as the "answer" is before us but we simply can't find the courage to try to find it. leaving the song with the line "If we can find a reason, a reason to change" only to switch it at the end to "If you can find a reason, a reason to stay Standing in the pouring rain" The singer relates to the pain of her but he knows there is nothing he can do. Matt Shultz puts more of himself in his songs than most people realize.