The Ballad of Todd Snider

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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with bodycam footage of Todd Snider’s arrest (see below).

Singer, songwriter, and storyteller Todd Snider is the great American anti-star. That’s how he started his career, that’s how he rose to prominence, and that’s how he falls from grace. Todd Snider doesn’t belong on TMZ, no matter how tawdry the details of his recent arrest are. He’s a cult figure that rewired the brain of alternative American music, and became and inspiration to a generation of songwriters.

Now that his name has been slathered across headlines from publications that otherwise wouldn’t bother to say a peep about Todd Snider, it feels appropriate to take a deep breath, a step back, determine how we go here, and how we can unwind the situation to make sure this critically-important member and contributor to the music community is cared for.

To understand the story of Todd Snider, geography is key. He was born in Portland, Oregon and was raised in nearby Beaverton, but that might be the most unimportant geographical detail of his biography. After attending junior college in Santa Rosa, California briefly and dropping out, Snider ended up in San Marcos, TX, not Austin just 30 minutes up the road, but San Marcos.

While living in San Marcos in the late ’80s, Snider saw Jerry Jeff Walker perform—just himself and a guitar—at the legendary Gruene Hall in nearby New Braunfels. With little or no music experience beyond blowing on a harmonica some, Todd Snider decided he’d been placed on this earth to be a songwriter. Todd bought a guitar, and started writing songs the very next day.

When you think of Todd Snider, you might not think of Texas or the Texas Music Scene, but Texas played a major role in his musical maturation. He met Kent Finlay, the legendary proprietor of the Cheatham Street Warehouse. It was Finlay who introduced Todd to songwriters like Guy Clark and John Prine. Soon Snider was drawing his own crowds in the San Marcos songwriting rooms, and started driving up to Austin to perform.

But it’s not San Marcos or Austin that would become synonymous with Todd Snider when his career started to take off, save for his spirited, and under-appreciated appearance on Season 21 of Austin City Limits in 1996. At the time, Snider’s debut album from 1994 called Songs for the Daily Planet was really taking off. The Daily Planet was a club in Memphis that became Todd Snider home base after he moved there around 1990 looking to work with songwriter Keith Sykes. Snider’s father moved to Memphis in 1989, and had passed Sykes a demo of his son’s stuff.


Keith Sykes introduced Todd Snider to two very significant people. The first was John Prine, who Todd would remain a close friend of and consider a mentor all the way up to Prine’s death on 2020. Sykes had also once been a member of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. Sykes got Snider on a show in California opening for Buffett, who personally witnessed Snider’s set, and offered him a deal on his Margaritaville Records, distributed by MCA.

Songs for the Daily Planet might have been written for audiences in a club in Memphis, but it would take Todd Snider nationwide. It was co-produced by the legendary Tony Brown, who was just inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It wasn’t really a country album and it wasn’t meant to be. It was more of an alt-country, singer/songwriter album with a full band. Among other notables, the album featured Eddy Shaver, the hot shot guitar player and son of Billy Joe Shaver.

“Alright Guy” is the song that would become Snider’s signature tune. Country artist Gary Allan even made it the title track to his 2001 album. Jerry Jeff Walker covered the song in 2001 too in a full circle moment for Todd Snider. Mark Chesnutt covered Snider’s song “Trouble” on his 1995 album Wings. No different than his songwriting heroes, Todd Snider was influencing mainstream country and landing cuts while still distinctly remaining himself.

But the song whose importance seems to be forgotten from Snider’s first album was the hidden track at the very end, “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues.” It was a commentary on grunge music, told through a band that refused to play, but became successful anyway. It really was the song that introduced Snider to the world as it was picked up on college radio and even mainstream rock stations. As a hidden track parody, it was the perfect anti-hit to launch Todd Snider’s unlikely career.

Snider would release two more albums for Margaritaville/MCA, Step Right Up (1996) and Viva Satellite (1998). Neither was as successful as Songs for the Daily Planet, though some still consider Step Right Up one Snider’s best. It was during the recording of Viva Satellite that things started to turn sideways. There were rumors of drug use, then tell-tale signs of it seen publicly.

In May of 1998 while Todd Snider was performing at a private party for MCA brass, he ended up insulting those in attendance early in the performance and then walked off stage. This was the first sign that the peace-loving, whimsical, storytelling Snider had a dark streak. He was ultimately dropped from the label.

However, Todd Snider found a soft landing with his friend John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, releasing three albums through the label, most notably 2004’s East Nashville Skyline. Once again, geography played a major role in the Todd Snider universe. The title was a play off of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, but it really was Todd Snider helping to define the emerging influence of Nashville’s east side where creative types flocked to in order to get away from mainstream country’s power base, and to find affordable housing.


In the modern era, there really was East Nashville before Todd Snider’s 2004 album, and East Nashville afterwards. In many ways, the album helped spark the current independent country revolutionary era as so many performers from throwback hipster country to indie rock-inspired Americana congregated in one geographical area. It wasn’t the title of East Nashville Skyline though, but songs like “Play a Train Song” and “The Ballad of the Kingsman” that made Snider like a guru to many up-and-coming musicians. This was also the period that Todd Snider’s music became much more political.

What also elevated Todd Snider to cult hero status is that he’d written the first version of the song “Beer Run” that appeared on his 2002 album New Connection, though he’d been performing it live well before that. When Garth Brooks released a song of the same on his Scarecrow album, controversy and lawsuits ensued. Snider ended up writing a song called “If Tomorrow Never Comes” as sort of a kiss-off to the situation.

Snider would tell his “Beer Run” story in concert regularly, along with many other tales from his time in music. His storytelling became legendary, leading to his 2011 album Todd Snider Live: The Storyteller. But following a somewhat regular pattern, each time Todd Snider found an elevated level of success, it was proceeded by a fall from grace, however slight or pronounced. This kept Snider from breaking out into the bigger consciousness.

In songwriting circles and in East Nashville though, Todd Snider was revered as a saint, often being forgiven for missed or canceled tour dates, or other personal indiscretions that would creep into people’s experiences with the songwriter. In the past five years however, those indiscretions, canceled plans, and the general chaos that surrounded Todd Snider that in some respects was forgivable and endearing previously ultimately became unbearable.

The pandemic was tough on everyone. But for some, it was tougher than others. 2020 saw the death of both good friend and former label boss John Prine on April 7th due to Covid-19. Then Todd Snider’s songwriting hero and the inspiration for his entire career, Jerry Jeff Walker, died on October 23rd. This put Todd Snider in a dark place.

But it wasn’t just the emotional distress that put the acclaimed songwriter in a lot of pain. A diagnosis of spinal stenosis had kept him off the road since 2022, and made the famously affable, good-humored, if not passionate and outspoken Todd Snider turn irritable and morose. According to people close to Todd Snider, the daily pain is acute and unbearable for Snider, and the pain pills he takes to stave it off have led to his addiction issues rising to the surface once again.

Todd Snider’s long-time manager Burt Stein (also the fmr. manager of Motley Crue) left the picture in 2023. Todd Snider’s long-time tour manager and business partner Brian Kincaid also left a few months ago. According to those close to Todd Snider, he’s been telling people, “I’m a junkie and I’m going to die a junkie, and it’s okay.”

But this shouldn’t be okay with anyone in the music industry, from the Texas music scene where Snider got his start, to Memphis where Todd regaled audiences for years and launched his career in earnest, to East Nashville where he helped seed the roots music revolution that acts as a counter-balance to the ills of the mainstream country music industry and Music Row.

You can hear the pain Todd Snider is suffering through, and the sense of being forgotten in the lyrics of Todd Snider’s new album High, Lonesome, and Then Some released October 17th via Thirty Tigers. Instead of singing, Tod Snider is often talking in the passages, as if he’s struggling to perform through pain. There has always been a darkness to Snider’s music, but it was always chased with humor, or glossed over with a good story. That is mostly gone.

According to people familiar with the situation, Todd Snider should have never embarked on the 13-stop tour that started in Englewood, CO on October 30th, and ended abruptly in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 1st. Fans who arrived at the show saw equipment being loaded into the venue, and no indication that anything was wrong. But the show was eventually cancelled. Then a message went out to fans on November 3rd via “Aimless, Inc.,” which is Todd Snider’s record label.

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We are heartbroken to announce the cancellation of the High, Lonesome and Then Some 2025 Tour dates. Ahead of Todd Snider’s show in Salt Lake City, Todd sustained severe injuries as the victim of a violent assault outside of his hotel.

Todd will be unable to perform for an undetermined amount of time. We deeply apologize for the cancellation and any inconvenience it causes. We appreciate your understanding as Todd receives needed medical treatment. We hope to have more information on new dates.

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But this ended up to just be the beginning of a saga that concerned fans, long-time friends, and even the police are trying to unravel. What’s for certain is the statement doesn’t even begin to paint the full picture of what happened.

According to Salt Lake City Police Detective Michael Ruff, on Sunday afternoon (11-2) at about at about 3:40 p.m., Snider flagged a bystander down at 245 S. State Street, and asked them to call police. Snider ended up talking to the dispatcher, and told them he’d been assaulted and robbed the night before. When police arrived “he basically told [officers] he’d been in town with his band, and the band left him,” says Detective Ruff. “All he could tell [officers] was he was mugged at the venue he was supposed to play at.”

This information contradicts what was in Todd Snider’s original statement, since Snider claimed he’d been assaulted outside of his hotel. Police also observed at the time that Snider had staples in his head, and appeared to have been treated at a hospital or other medical facility previously. Snider then asked officers if they could take him to the hospital so he could have some place to sleep. The officers refused, and unable to determine exactly what happened to Snider, left the scene without looking further into the alleged assault against Snider.

This is when Todd Snider made his way less than two miles east to the Common Spirit Holy Cross Hospital. It is uncertain if Snider was ever treated at the Holy Cross hospital. But when hospital staff asked Snider to leave, he refused and became belligerent, demanding treatment. Police were called once again. Snider was arrested for suspicion of criminal trespass, threat of violence, and disorderly conduct—two Class B misdemeanors and an infraction.

Also, according to security staff at the hospital, Todd Snider was “cussing and screaming,” and that at one point Snider bragged that he was “richer than them” and that they’d “never be anything.”

Saving Country Music has reached out to Todd Snider’s publicist for further clarification, a statement, or any other information about what happened to Snider in Salt Lake City, or what his current status is. As of this post, there has been no response.

According to people close to Todd Snider, he’s been frustrated at the state of his life and career, feeling like he’s been left behind, and his contributions overlooked. Combined with the severe spinal stenosis that has inflamed his addiction issues, it has made his life unbearable, and Todd unbearable to be around.

The question now is if the music community will simply continue to simply gawk at his problems and gossip about them, or rise up to attempt to get Todd Snider back to a comfortable place? Much of this work must come from Todd Snider himself, just how it’s many of his own decisions that have put his life and career in this precarious position.

But the hard lessons we all had to learn with the passing of performers like Luke Bell, Justin Townes Earle, and many others are ones nobody wants to have to endure again. The music is so often there for us in dark times. The question is, will the music community be there for someone like Todd Snider, and how can be be reached?

Whatever happened in Salt Lake City and whatever led to it, it very well might make for one very epic Todd Snider song and story someday. But we’ll only get to hear it if he’s still around to write, sing, and tell it. It should be the imperative of us all to make sure that day comes, and many more days for the wild, whimsical, tortured, often troubled, but tantamountly important musical contributions of Todd Daniel Snider.

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