Todd Snider photo by Melissa Clarke
The Lyrics Only Todd Could Write
When we lost Todd Snider, we lost one of America’s most important writers. Though he never gained the mainstream recognition or fame that other top-echelon lyricists amassed in their lifetimes, his influence on the now-mature class of Americana songwriters that followed him by a generation is undeniable. From mainstream hit-makers like Jason Isbell to indie-troubadours like John Craigie to viral breakouts like Sierra Ferrell, crossing paths with Todd became a formative experience — a turning point that expanded audiences, reshaped ambitions, and reframed what songs could be.
I spoke with Todd about writing lyrics in a 2020 interview leading up to his return to the Devil’s Backbone Tavern – where his life as a performer began – after a 30+ year absence. In that interview I was struck by the precision of his memory regarding when and where he wrote particular lyrics and the path each line took into its final form. The only thing he couldn’t articulate was how he – a high school football jock turned bong-ripping burnout – became a genre-defining poet in a genre with no shortage of great ones. He simply described his writing process as “cosmic.”
A Writer who Folded Language in on itself
One of the signatures of Todd’s writing is wordplay, and his ability to twist a sentence or phrase inside out and backwards on itself. “The older I get the more I worry that the more I worry that the older I get,” he sings in Big Finish from 2012’s Agnostic Fables and Stoner Hymns. And in Roman Candles, which he recorded as a member of Hardworking Americans in 2016, he sings “I think therefore I am because I am, or so I thought I was.”
It’s not that Todd invented being clever. It’s just that most writers use cleverness to bring levity to their work, whereas Todd masterfully used it as an emotional killshot that exposed fear, tenderness, and doubt. He wrote humor and sadness the same line as if the two emotions are one, threaded with an invisible strand that connects us all. But now that I’ve typed all that pretentious nonsense out, I think his word choice – cosmic – might have summed it up perfectly.
An Auteur of Lyrical Storytelling
Todd was also known as “the storyteller,” for his meandering, often half-true tales he would tell between songs. But his ability to tell a story was not limited to his on-stage banter. As a lyricist, he was a remarkably efficient world builder who could write cinematic narratives and bring complex characters and vivid settings to life in the short span of a few verses.
In his vast oeuvre, there are countless examples of lyrics we might call Todd-isms. They’re deceptive, clever, playful, funny, honest, and sad – sometimes all at once. I wouldn’t pretend that you can fully appreciate them as I’ve written them below. They are meant to be performed, and specifically performed by Todd himself.
But for no other reason than because it’s cathartic to talk about Todd, and try to make sense of why his music was such an addictive drug for myself and so many others over the years, here are a few of my favorite examples of lyrics that define Todd Snider – ones that only he could have written.
Looking for a Job, 2006
So you see, broke won’t take much getting used to
Neither will a barb wire jail house wall
Watch what you say to someone with nothing
It’s almost like having it all
Kris Kristofferson wrote “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” and Todd wrote that having nothing is almost like having it all.
Looking for a Job is written from the point of view of a seedy ex-con construction laborer explaining the jobsite’s real power dynamic to his employer. If you don’t want to have to hang your own drywall, don’t push me too far. It’s an empowering anthem for anyone whose ever wanted to tell their boss to fuck off, which is probably most of us.
Todd’s ability to write seedy people and seedy places was another one of his superpowers. He was the poet laureate of the wrong side of the tracks, but brought heart and complexity to the characters he found there.
Which brings us to:
Just Like Old Times, 2006
No sir officer you don’t understand
We’re just two old friends drinkin’ wine
I’m sure she is but that’s not all she is
She’s also an old friend of mine
I got her high school picture right here in my wallet, 1982
No sir officer no offense taken
You have a good night, too
Just Like Old Times tells a less-than-classic American love story: transient pool hustler finds his old flame in the sex-worker ads in a free newspaper, and the two spend a cocaine-fueled night catching up in a dive motel. By the end, you’re rooting for both of them.
There’s a Bugs Bunny quality to the dialogue in this verse. It’s disarming and friendly, with a slight hint of wise-ass. No sir officer, it’s duck season. We can imagine talking oneself out of trouble is a skill a pool hustler must master, but Todd doesn’t tell us that – he shows us with the sharpness of a screenwriter.
The song ends in triumph, with a harmonica solo that lifts us out of the scene like a crane shot in a classic motion picture. It’s hard to imagine any place more romantic than the parking lot of this motel, illuminated by the glow of a coke machine. Just Like Old Times is so natively cinematic as written that it inspired filmmaker Justin Corsbie’s 2021 film “Hard Luck Love Song.”
Bringing characters and scenes to life through images was a skill he used time and time again, as we’ll see next:
Double Wide Blues, 1998
V-neck t-shirt with a mustard stain
Rollin’ up a hose outside in the rain
He’s been my neighbor since ’bout ’79
‘Course he was in prison most of that time
Ever since then he just ain’t been right
His old lady works days and they fight most nights
Laid off and blown off, pissed off on booze
Doublewide blues
A prevailing popular caricature of Mark Twain is an image of the wild-haired bard sitting in a rocker on an ornate Victorian porch, spinning yarns to anyone who will listen.
As Todd opens Double Wide Blues, he’s on a porch in a west Tennessee trailer park, and we’re right there with him. You can almost hear the creaking of his cheap lawn chair as bends down to pick his coffee off the top of a styrofoam cooler. There’s Jimmy with the blue plastic pool. The manager with the confederate flag on his door. Someone plays Metallica a few trailers down.
If there’s a hidden meaning to Double Wide Blues I don’t want to know what it is. I just want to sit with Todd for a while on a misty Tennessee morning in the early 1990s, and listen to him describe what he sees.
Too Soon To Tell, 2012
I’ve just met too many people that I love too much
They’re scattered all over; I could never stay in touch
I’ve been travellin’, almost forever it seems
You too will wake up one morning with a lot more memories than dreams
Every line in Too Soon To Tell is so good that the song reads as if Todd looked through his old notebooks and decided to drop all his best unused couplets into a single song. But this verse in particular stands out to me as elevated. There’s a weariness to it – having been on the road forever – and realizing that there’s more behind you in life than there is in front of you.
It’s yet another over-the-hill recognition from someone who had many of them. From Too late to die young now in Age Like Wine (2004) to While We Still Have the Chance (2025) – Todd explored mortality frequently, and as he builds to this line with vamping guitar strums – you can tell how much it meant to him and how hard he wanted it to hit the listener.
Stuck on a Corner, 2008
Stuck on the corner of sanity and madness
Looking them over, I can’t see a difference
We’re making money out of paper, making paper out of trees
We’re making so much money we can hardly breathe
For someone who – to my knowledge – never held a 9-5 corporate job in his life, Todd sure understood what it felt like to be stuck on the corner of sanity and madness. Look left, and you’ll see the American dream – a home on a cul-de-sac – two cars in the garage – a job with VP in the title – and enough money to buy your daughter a convertible. And to the right – irresponsibility – partying – being a bum. Which one is sanity and which one is madness? I’ve been on both roads, and I have my answer.
We’re making money out of paper, making paper out of trees
We’re making so much money we can hardly breathe
The whole song is a commentary about capitalism destroying our souls and our planet without being, say – a Joan Baez about it. It’s a chef’s kiss of a Todd-ism, and pairs nicely with Statisticians Blues.
Statisticians Blues, 1992
They say 92 percent of everything you learned in school
was just bullshit you’ll never need
84 percent of everything you got you bought
just to satisfy your greed
Because 90 percent of the world’s population
Will link your possessions to your success
Even though 80 percent of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population
drinks to an alarming excess
More money, more stress I guess
Again, Todd takes aim at the effect of capitalism on the behavior and spirit of those mired deeply in it.
This song takes a dark turn at the end, with the protagonist – a statistician – revealing that he hates his job and has been fantasizing about robbing a little bank down the road – even if it means going down in the process. Having nothing is almost like having it all, Todd says. And in the same sense, having it all at times feels a lot like having nothing.
And yet, he was always willing to be honest about the internal conflict that exists within all of us between integrity and wealth.
Can’t Complain, 1998
Now I’ve got a brand new dance
I need one more shot
I just need one last chance
You know I won’t get caught
I wanna make my last stand
This time I can’t be bought
But then again, on the other hand
How much have you got?
Todd’s career undoubtedly frustrated him at times. He was frequently surpassed in wealth and fame by less talented, flash-in-the-pan artists as he settled into the role of a niche troubadour – touring in a van – while tour busses streamed by.
And time and time again he put his integrity first. He refused to take some controversial lyrics out of Alright Guy, likely dooming it – a song that should have been a hit – from reaching the charts. And he once blew up at a room full of record executives in LA, walking away from major-label life. This time, I can’t be bought.
But always with a mischievous grin, he follows up. Then again, on the other other hand. Everyone has a price. Todd would never pretend otherwise.
Todd’s legacy will live on
Todd’s loss feels like the death of a genre. The only lyricists that I would compare him with stylistically are Shel Silverstein, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver. Five of those six mentored Todd personally. And now, all of them are gone – with all but Silverstein and Clark dying in the last 5 years.
But this assessment – that Todd’s death is the death of a genre is wrong. There remain countless greats, James McMurtry, Steve Poltz, Hayes Carl, Sierra Ferrell, Allison Russell, John Craigie, Jesse Welles – to name a few – who continue to bring vivid and profound poetry to Americana music. These artists – all of whom I follow closely – seem to keep getting better with each new release, and it’s exciting to see a genre pushed forward from so many different angles.
My hope for Todd’s legacy is that like Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, or Kurt Cobain, high school kids will be wearing Todd Snider T-shirts 40 years from now. His writing is timeless, and if his estate manages his legacy well, I believe his popularity will continue to climb as new generations discover his music.
It’s a shame he won’t be around to see it.
“Ain’t that about a son of a bitch,” he’d probably say.