I began writing this little article about Todd Snider on Saturday morning. The intent was to call attention to a brilliant songwriter who had recently been undergoing some serious medical and mental health issues. By the time I finished writing an hour later, the news was announced that Snider, 59 years old, had died.
As of this moment, there are no further details on the cause.
If you are unfamiliar with the songs of Todd Snider, you are missing a vital part of Americana – not just the musical genre, but the attitude and ethos. John Craigie, who is indeed a worthy heir to the lineage he outlines, has got it right. Over the past thirty years, Todd Snider extended a musical legacy that traces back to Cash’s outlaws.
A journey through Todd Snider's career in 12 songs
From Craigie’s song “I Almost Stole Some Weed from Todd Snider:”
“Johnny Cash was famous, Kris Kristofferson was not
Kristofferson sang for Johnny then Kristofferson was hot
John Prine was no one, Kristofferson heard him play
Kristofferson gave him his blessing, sent John Prine on his way
Todd Snider opened for John Prine a few years ago
He made John Prine laugh, John Prine made him a star
And now, I was going to meet Todd Snider
Johnny Cash’s initials are JC, mine are also JC
Pass me the torch, the circle is complete.”
Actually, Snider's legacy reaches back much farther, to Woody Guthrie, to mountain music and delta blues, into the very core of the American experience. The fact that Snider happens to be one of the funniest men who ever picked up a guitar has made him that much more of an American treasure.
And if you are unfamiliar with Snider, then chances are you have not read about his recent troubles that came to an end on Friday with his death in Tennessee.
The singer/songwriter, who suffered from spinal stenosis in recent years, recently began his first tour in three years in support of his new album High, Lonesome, and Then Some. An alleged incident before a Salt Lake City show put an abrupt end to the tour.
All we know is that Snider reported being mugged before the show, and was later arrested after allegedly becoming belligerent at the hospital. He returned home to Nashville, where he was hospitalized for what was being called a “complicated” condition.
Snider suffered from bipolar disorder and spoke openly about his battles with depression and substance abuse. His latest troubles in Salt Lake City came on the heels of the very painful spinal condition and the death of beloved mentors like Prine and Kristofferson.
This has all been overwhelmingly sad for friends and fans alike. Now that he is gone, we are left with a remarkable collection of songs to remind us the enormous wit, insight, and compassion of one of America’s best storytellers.
This is not meant to be a “greatest” song list. While it’s true that many of the following songs would overlap with such a list, today I am trying to offer a snapshot of a long career, covering as many bases as possible with as many outstanding songs as I can.
I think that if you listened to the following playlist, you’d fall in love with a lot of the selections.
“This Land is Our Land” from Songs for the Daily Planet (1994)
Snider’s debut announced a powerful voice. His song “Alright Guy” put his dumbfounded everyman on display with a sardonic wink. But the deeper messages contained in the bluesy strains of the haunting “You Think You Know Somebody” and the political crunch of this track revealed far more than a funny guy with a guitar.
The roots anthem “This Land is Our Land” draws a direct line to Woody Guthrie and gives full throat to those who protest unmitigated greed.
“Heaven knows we need this land
Cause the world needs land fills, diet pills and papermills
We need country clubs and oil spill
This land is our land…”
“Can’t Complain” from “Viva Satellite” (1998)
A quieter, more reflective Snider revels in the ennui of just sort of getting along. No one captures the slacker in song quite as well. Punk rockers who sing about the subject have an aggressiveness that counters their laziness. But Snider, through his incisive wordplay, does that thing that great writers struggle with. He shows boredom without actually being boring.
“All I wanted was one chance to let freedom ring
They said I had to get a permit, tags and everything
I never made it through the red tape, I got this paper hat
I got a job workin’ weekdays – you want fries with that?”
“The Story of ‘The Ballad of the Devil’s Backbone Tavern’” and “The Ballad of the Devil’s Backbone Tavern” from Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live (2003)
Snider released a live album in 2003 and it brought his unique brand of songwriting to a wider audience. Though his best albums do manage to capture his voice, there is something in a live performance that unlocks a vivaciousness that the studio can dampen. Seeing Snider live is the best way to encounter his music, as this album makes clear.
The introductory story to this song (I won’t retype that very long title) is laugh-out-loud funny, delivered with the timing of a deadpan comedian. The song is remarkably sweet and insightful on the subject af what it means to sing for a living –or to do anything out of love, for that matter.
“She said life’s too short to worry, she said life’s too long to wait
It’s too short not to love everybody and life is too long to hate”
“Play a Train Song” from East Nashville Skyline (2004)
Start here. It is probably Todd Snider’s best song, although I realize how silly that kind of proclamation is before I even finish typing it. Suffice to say that musically and lyrically, this is the heart and soul of Americana. It manages to be one of his most upbeat, optimistic songs while ending in the death of the main character. That duality is often integral to great art and is certainly a hallmark of Snider’s.
“And though I tried with all my sadness, somehow I just-a could not weep
For a man who looked to me like he died laughing in his sleep.”
(Interlude)
“I want to let you know that I will be expressing some opinions in the songs I sing. I also want you to know that I am not expressing these opinions because I think they’re smart or because you need to know them. I’m expressing them because they rhyme.”
“Conservative, Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males” from East Nashville Skyline (2004)
Snider used some version of that “because they rhyme” line throughout his career to lighten the mood, especially when he was about to deliver a diatribe. He never had a clearer, more riotously funny diatribe than he did in this shaggy dog of a protest song, which seems more relevant in 2025 than it did even at the height of Bush 2.
And I swear I have heard more straight white American males express a connection to this song than any other leftist rant that I know of. This is why we need Todd Snider. He finds points of connection that politicians and pundits miss. In this case, it’s smoking pot.
“Quite diligently workin’ so hard to keep the free reigns of this democracy
From tree-huggin’, peace-lovin’, pot-smokin’, barefootin’, folk-singin’ hippies like me.”
“Just Like Old Times” from The Devil You Know (2006)
“Just like Old Times” is a lovely song about second chances and it showed off some of the growth that Snider was experiencing as a songwriter. It is one of the most cinematic portraits he had created to that point, both visually and narratively.
That may be why filmmaker Justin Corsbie built an entire movie around it. 2020’s Hard Luck Love Affair is not exactly a cinematic gem, but it’s a decent movie, and really, how many songs have ever inspired a feature film?
“There’s a Coke machine glowin’ through the parking lot
Call it a room with a view
This was the best night of pool that I ever shot
I made a lot of money too.”
“Cheatham Street Warehouse” from Peace, Love, and Anarchy (2007)
From a collection of back catalogue songs, Snider always had a strong outlaw country vibe that he would exercise more and more as the years went on. This is a flat-out great pounding rocker that recalls early Steve Earle, references Billy Joe Shaver, and pays homage to a San Marcos, Texas legendary venue.
“A Cheatham Street Warehouse honky tonk song
The kind Billy Joe just can’t get wrong
I’m gonna carve my name in the bar
Hope that you can hear it wherever you are.”
“Stuck on the Corner (Prelude to a Heart Attack)” from Peace Queer (2008)
Another blues rocker that pounds home its populist message about how greed and acquisition do not lead to happiness. It works in tandem with the next song on the album, “Dividing the Estate (A Heart Attack),” in showing a life poorly lived and its results.
“You ought to hear the s**t that I get from my daughter
She says that she can’t stand the sight of the car I bought her”
“America’s Favorite Pastime” from The Excitement Plan (2009)
I’m not going to make claims that this is a great song. Don’t get me wrong – it’s very good, with its funky groove and marvelous story. I’ve just always loved how Todd Snider can take anything – from the life a statistician to the exploits of a criminal folk hero to the age-old young man pursuit of beer – and make up a song about it.
Who better to tell the story of Pittsburgh Pirates' pitcher Dock Ellis, who threw a no-hitter in 1970 while (reportedly) under the influence of LSD, than Todd Sinder?
“Taking the mound, the ground turned into the icing on a birthday cake
The leadoff man came up and turned into a dancing rattlesnake
The crowd tracked back and forth in waves of color underneath the sun
That ball turned into a silver bullet, his arm into a gun.”
“Dope is Dope” from Rest in Chaos (Hard Working Americans) (2016)
Snider exercised some of his rock and roll muscles when he joined up with a couple of members of Widespread Panic to form the alt-rock supergroup Hard Working Americans in 2013. Snider was the lead singer and, when they recorded original material, the primary songwriter.
Rest in Chaos was their second (and as of now, final) album. “Dope is Dope” is a trippy blues rocker that doesn’t preach, but merely describes a drug addiction. It opens with a reference to Johnny Cash – a subject we will return to in just a moment.
“Mother never understood him
Whose mother ever really does
She though he sounded good sober
She should have heard him with a buzz (on).”
“The Ghost of Johnny Cash” from Cash Cabin Sessions (2019)
I said earlier that “Play a Train Song” may be the best song Todd Snider ever wrote. But this one may be his truest legacy. It is a haunting ballad about the past and how there are things in this life that we will never shake. Johnny Cash was a seminal figure in the landscape of American music, and for artists like Todd Snider, his influence was inescapable.
Here, he imagines a spectral scene in which another icon of American song, Loretta Lynn, dances with Johnny Cash, and worlds are forever altered. It completes a long-term arc in which a songwriter moves from writing funny folk tunes to crafting deeply felt glimpses into the mystery, stretching his musical chops along the way.
“Like a song into the ether, like a soul into the light
John Carter told me he saw her
She was out there dancing again that very next night.”
“While We Still Have a Chance” from High, Lonesome and Then Some (2025)
When Snider’s latest album dropped earlier this year, critics immediately noted its stripped-down, bleak tone. You could still find some humor in its spare collection of songs, but it was more of the wry, self-knowing type than the laugh-out-loud brand Snider had built his early career upon. His recent troubles have made listening to it simultaneously more meaningful and more painful.
“While We Still Have a Chance” is a gentle plea for unlikely resurrection in the face of inevitable collapse. His voice, which is more haggard here than it has ever been, still can manage a twinkle. This is quite simply a beautiful, sad song – the type that few would have thought could come from a man who found his earliest major success by writing “Bee, double-EEE, double R, U, N – beer run!”
“I know that it would take a heartache or two
To play and sing that song the way you do
But I see that halo glowing over you
And I know this universe is calling you…”
Finale
“Some of you who have seen me before may have noticed that I’m wearing shoes. I saw my doctor recently and he said he was worried about my health. He said I needed to start wearing shoes and stop smoking pot. So anyway – I’m wearing shoes.”
Todd Snider said that – or something like it – the last time I saw him perform live. I had hoped to one day experience that pleasure again. Now, like all his fans, I will have to content myself with his recordings.