Princess Chelsea — “The Cigarette Duet” (2011)

Reflected on: 2026-02-02

When You Know a Sound Before You Know Why

I came across “The Cigarette Duet” completely by chance—one of those algorithm gifts or friend recommendations that lands at exactly the right moment—and within the first ten seconds, I knew this sound.

Not the song itself. The lineage.

That harpsichord-like keyboard. That baroque string arrangement. That deadpan female voice paired with a world-weary male baritone. The conversational duet structure. The emotional detachment that somehow makes vulnerability feel even more raw.

This was Lee Hazlewood.

Not literally—Princess Chelsea is a New Zealand artist named Chelsea Nikkel, and this track came out in 2011, decades after Hazlewood’s baroque pop heyday. But the DNA is unmistakable. This is an explicit homage, a love letter to that specific mid-60s aesthetic Hazlewood perfected with Nancy Sinatra.

And once I recognized it, the song opened up completely.

Princess Chelsea sound is built on:

Vintage synths and drum machines (especially Roland TR-808s)
Deadpan, affectless vocals
Baroque pop arrangements (strings, harpsichord-like sounds)
A kind of emotional detachment that makes vulnerability feel even more raw

The Hazlewood Blueprint

Lee Hazlewood created a very specific alchemy in his duets with Nancy Sinatra—“These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” “Some Velvet Morning,” “Summer Wine”—that nobody else quite captured:

The voices: His weathered baritone (like bourbon and cigarettes) paired with her cool, almost affectless soprano. The gender dynamic was fascinating—she wasn’t delicate, he wasn’t domineering. They were equals in detachment.

The arrangements: Baroque pop orchestration—harpsichords, sweeping strings, that late-60s European film soundtrack vibe. Think Ennio Morricone scoring a relationship instead of a Western.

The structure: Call-and-response conversation, not traditional verse-chorus. The duets felt like eavesdropping on two people working something out in real-time.

The emotional register: Ambiguous. Are they flirting? Fighting? Manipulating each other? The deadpan delivery keeps you guessing.

This specific combination—baroque arrangements + conversational duet + emotional ambiguity—became Hazlewood’s signature, and it’s exactly what “The Cigarette Duet” resurrects.

How Princess Chelsea Channels the Lineage

“The Cigarette Duet” (featuring Jonathan Bree from The Brunettes) is practically a masterclass in understanding what made Hazlewood’s aesthetic work.

The Conversation Structure

The entire song is a back-and-forth about cigarettes as gateway to worse habits:

Him: “It’s just a cigarette and it cannot be that bad” Her: “Honey, don’t you love me? And you know it makes me sad” Him: “It’s only twice a week so there’s not much of a chance” Her: “It’s gonna start a habit and then you’re gonna pack”

The lyrics are almost childishly simple—just variations on “it’s just a cigarette” / “but it leads to…”—but the repetition becomes hypnotic. Hazlewood did this constantly (listen to “Some Velvet Morning” for the ultimate example of repetition as trance).

The Baroque Pop Production

That harpsichord-like keyboard is the sonic anchor—it immediately signals “1968.” The string arrangement swoops and sighs. The whole thing sounds like it could’ve been on a French New Wave film soundtrack.

But here’s what’s clever: Princess Chelsea recorded this in 2011, likely on a laptop with vintage synths and VSTs. It’s analog-emulating digital production—the warmth of 1968 recreated with 2011 technology. It sounds authentically vintage but with modern clarity.

The Deadpan Delivery

What makes the Hazlewood comparison so precise is the vocal affect.

Nancy Sinatra was famous for her cool, detached delivery—she sounded almost bored, which made everything she sang feel subversively powerful. Princess Chelsea takes this even further: her voice is nearly robotic in its flatness, which makes the concern about cigarettes feel both sincere and absurdly funny.

Jonathan Bree’s baritone isn’t as growly as Hazlewood’s, but he matches the world-weariness—the tone of someone who’s had this argument before and knows how it ends.

Why This Sound Resonates With Me

For someone with my listening history—Stereolab’s baroque pop experiments, krautrock’s hypnotic repetition, trip-hop’s cinematic atmospheres, Portuguese folk’s melancholic beauty—“The Cigarette Duet” sits at a perfect intersection.

It’s vintage without being nostalgic. Princess Chelsea clearly loves this aesthetic, but she’s not just recreating it—she’s filtering it through indie DIY sensibility and New Zealand drollness. There’s self-awareness here, but it’s not ironic distance. It’s sincere pastiche.

The song also captures something about millennial anxiety through a 1968 lens. The conversation about cigarettes leading to worse things (kissing a boy, heroin, crack) sounds like a relic from another era, but the neurotic escalation feels very contemporary. It’s both a time capsule and a mirror.

The Broader Revival: Baroque Pop in the 2010s

“The Cigarette Duet” came out during a specific moment (2008-2014) when indie music was having a vintage synth / baroque pop revival.

Artists channeling similar aesthetics:

Lana Del Rey - Explicitly Hazlewood-obsessed (she covered “Summer Wine”), building an entire career on baroque pop melancholia and vintage production

Melody’s Echo Chamber - French psych-pop with vintage keys and chamber arrangements

Cate Le Bon - Welsh art-pop with deadpan vocals and surreal arrangements

Broadcast (RIP Trish Keenan) - The godmother of this entire aesthetic—haunting vocals over vintage synthesizers and analog warmth

Princess Chelsea fits into this lineage but brings her own New Zealand sensibility—there’s a droll humor and DIY charm that connects her to the Dunedin sound and bands like The Brunettes (Jonathan Bree’s main project), who were reviving 60s pop with indie lo-fi textures.

The Viral Moment

“The Cigarette Duet” went unexpectedly viral—over 50 million views on YouTube—partly because of the mesmerizing stop-motion video (directed by Princess Chelsea herself) and partly because the song is genuinely strange and catchy in equal measure.

It captured the internet’s love of:

Vintage aesthetics (that 1968 vibe)
Simple but hypnotic hooks (the repetition is maddening and addictive)
Emotional ambiguity (is this about addiction? Codependency? Both?)
DIY indie charm (you can feel the handmade quality)

For many listeners, this was their introduction to the baroque pop aesthetic—a gateway drug (pun intended) to discovering Lee Hazlewood, Serge Gainsbourg, Scott Walker, and the whole 60s tradition of orchestral, conversational pop.

Why the Lineage Matters

Recognizing the Lee Hazlewood connection doesn’t diminish “The Cigarette Duet”—it enriches it.

Understanding that Princess Chelsea is working within a tradition helps me hear:

The precision of the arrangement (those string swells are exactly where Hazlewood would place them)
The intentionality of the deadpan vocals (it’s not amateurish—it’s aesthetic choice)
The emotional layers (like Hazlewood’s duets, this is both sincere and subtly manipulative)

And it opens up a whole web of connections:

Hazlewood → Nancy Sinatra
Hazlewood → Scott Walker (who worshipped him)
Hazlewood → Serge Gainsbourg (parallel baroque pop architect in France)
Gainsbourg → Air, Stereolab (French electronic artists channeling vintage pop)
All of this → Princess Chelsea, Lana Del Rey, Melody’s Echo Chamber (2010s revival)

Music history isn’t linear—it’s a conversation across decades, with artists picking up threads left by their predecessors and weaving them into something new.

What the Song Actually Taught Me

On the surface, “The Cigarette Duet” is about a neurotic partner worrying that one cigarette will lead to heroin addiction (and they’re probably right, given how the song escalates).

But what I hear is a song about care and control, intimacy and manipulation.

The repetition—“It’s just a…” / “But it will lead to…”—mirrors how couples have the same argument over and over, neither side budging. The baroque arrangement makes the mundane feel operatic. The deadpan vocals make genuine concern sound like emotional numbness.

It’s a song about how we love people while trying to control them, how we express care through fear, how relationships get stuck in loops.

And by channeling Lee Hazlewood’s aesthetic—where emotional ambiguity was the whole point—Princess Chelsea finds the perfect form for this content.

If You Love This Sound

If “The Cigarette Duet” resonates, you’re basically ready to fall down the baroque pop rabbit hole:

The Original Sources:

Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - Nancy & Lee (1968) - the blueprint
Scott Walker - Scott 4 (1969) - male baritone baroque pop perfection
Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971) - French baroque pop as concept album

The 2010s Revival:

Lana Del Rey - Born to Die (2012) - Hazlewood obsession as pop career
Melody’s Echo Chamber - Melody’s Echo Chamber (2012) - French psych-pop with vintage keys
Broadcast - Tender Buttons (2005) - analog synth-driven art-pop

New Zealand Lineage:

The Brunettes - Structures & Cosmetics (2007) - Jonathan Bree’s main band, chamber-pop perfection

Final Thought

Coming across “The Cigarette Duet” by chance and immediately recognizing the Lee Hazlewood DNA felt like finding a secret handshake.

It reminded me that music history isn’t locked in the past—it’s a living conversation. Artists reach back across decades, pick up sounds and aesthetics that moved them, and reshape them for new contexts.

Princess Chelsea took Hazlewood’s baroque pop duet blueprint—the harpsichords, the strings, the conversational structure, the deadpan cool—and made it speak to millennial neuroses. The song is both a love letter to the past and a completely contemporary piece of art.

And now, knowing the lineage, I can’t unhear it. Every harpsichord note, every string swell, every deadpan line is in conversation with 1968.

That’s the magic of recognizing influences—the song becomes richer, deeper, part of a web of artists talking to each other across time.

Discovered by chance, February 2026 “It’s just a cigarette…”