In 2007, I was reporting a story about various music scenes in Nashville, and I figured I should interview Todd Snider. The singer-songwriter was, after all, a resident of and evangelist for East Nashville, Music City’s bohemian enclave. Snider had even named an album after the neighborhood, 2004’s East Nashville Skyline. I loved that one, as well as the Snider album that came after it, 2006’s The Devil You Know — loved Snider’s sly humor, the intelligence behind his stoner drawl, his feel for working folks and down-and-out characters. The details in his story-songs would roll around my head — like in “Play a Train Song,” a raggedly anthemic tribute to East Nashville legend Skip Litz, or “The Ballad of the Kingsmen,” a droll portrait of the “Louie Louie” band with some sociopolitical commentary attached, or “The Highland Street Incident,” a sketch of tweaker thieves I’d learn were based on real guys who had beaten up Snider one night.
Snider wasn’t the focus of my story in 2007; we were just supposed to chat over a drink. But I ended up spending the entire afternoon and evening with him. We went from a bar to an impromptu recording session, where Snider cut “Stuck on the Corner (Prelude to a Heart Attack),” about a desk jockey at the end of his rope. I had mentioned I used to play drums, and Snider encouraged me to get behind the kit for the recording. It may be hard to imagine an accomplished songwriter inviting an out-of-practice magazine writer to play on a real Nashville session, but this kind of open, why-the-hell-not? gesture fit with Snider’s easygoing kindness. Not wanting to embarrass myself, I declined. I kind of regret it now.
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We ended the night at Snider’s house. Over a fire in his backyard, we talked a lot about music — especially the Stones and John Prine, who had been one of Snider’s mentors. (Snider had great Prine stories.) Before we parted, he gave me his AOL address and vowed to stay in touch.
We emailed. He’d send missives both lengthy and gnomic, in a distinct Snider style: hardly any capital letters or punctuation, with each sentence starting on its own line, like a stoner E.E. Cummings or a newspaper column written by Mitch Hedberg.
He’d tell stories and give life updates. More than once, Snider asked for advice on a song or album, apparently valuing my opinion more than it was probably worth. In 2014, he made an album with a band he called Hard Working Americans. I was touched to see that he’d taken my offhand suggestion to cover Randy Newman’s “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man).” He emailed after he’d finished the record:
album was a blast
cant wait for you to hear it
were satanic rock i think
not to shabby
although our singer is a little kristoferson-ish
This next email was, I think, inspired by the fact that we had both met Lil Wayne on separate occasions, and the rapper had nicknamed us “Conan” (as in O’Brien) and “Rolling Papers,” respectively:
hey conan
it was great talking to you
thanks again,
rolling papers
I’d see Snider when he’d play in New York. My favorite parts of his shows were often the rambling stories he’d tell between songs, which could be as entertaining as anything he laid down in the studio. I particularly liked the one about how he temporarily became the singer of a Memphis cover band called K.K. Rider.
Snider was open throughout his career about his struggles with depression and drug abuse. I’d gotten sober around the time I met him, and we talked about recovery now and then. In one 2014 email he noted he was “down to weed again now for about a month. when I get done with this next thing I am working on. I may try to quit even that.”
Later, on two occasions, Snider let down some folks I cared about, and after that, we more or less lost touch. But I kept listening to his music. I played 2019’s “Working on a Song” a lot. It’s about spending forever trying to finish a tune, never to get it right. Snider tells himself to just let the song go, but figures he never will: “Givin’ up a dream is just like makin’ one come true/It’s easy to sit around talkin’ about, it’s harder to go out and do.”
In “Working on a Song,” the tune he’s trying to write is called “Where Will I Go Now That I’m Gone,” a title he sings with lonesome resignation. The song-within-a-song seemed to point toward something aching inside him, the perfect expression of which may have been a little beyond his reach. That’s my guess, anyway; I never asked him about it.
“Greencastle Blues,” from 2009, is another one that sticks with me. Inspired, so said its author, by an arrest for weed possession in Greencastle, Indiana, it’s a very Snideresque mix of dark and light — a blunt self-assessment delivered in that slacker croon: “Some of this trouble just finds me/Most of this trouble I earn/How do you know when it’s too late?/How do you know when it’s too late to learn?”
Last month, Rolling Stone published a profile by Josh Crutchmer, pegged to Snider’s latest album, High, Lonesome and Then Some. It’s a wonderful album, if not an easy listen, one that takes a few spins to appreciate. Snider had suffered a series of setbacks, from debilitating spinal stenosis to the deaths of musician friends Jeff Austin and Neal Casal. “I was really close to both of them,” Snider told Crutchmer. “I talked to both of them on the day they left us. I still struggle with that the most of all of it. Then there were a couple of breakups. We all have our day.” This was, of course, in the middle of a decade in which Snider had already lost other friends and heroes, including Prine and Jerry Jeff Walker.
After I read the piece, I decided to reach out to Snider again. The AOL address still worked. I asked how he was, told him I hoped the tour he was embarking on wasn’t (as had been declared) his last, reminded him he brought joy to folks far and wide.
He got back a day later, sweet and welcoming as ever. We exchanged a few messages. The last reply from him came not long before a disturbing incident in Utah that ended with Snider getting arrested. In perfectly random Snider fashion, that email was mostly about fellow singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell. By coincidence, a 2014 Rolling Stone photo story about East Nashville had captured a pre-fame Ferrell, a fun fact Snider wanted to share with me. Snider had, he said, given her a hand early in her career, and mentioned that he was “kinda proud” of the role he played in her life.
The email ended like this:
how are you doing up there?
i’m getting old down here
He didn’t get old enough, and I’m sad we can’t email anymore.
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