Rain Perry

It was just so sad yesterday to read that Todd Snider died. It had been a disturbing couple weeks for fans of his anyway, with an announcement that his tour was cancelled because of injuries sustained in an assault, and then a week later a request to light a candle for him because he had pneumonia and had taken a turn for the worse, and finally the shocking news that he had died. It's been so lovely over the last twenty-four hours to see the spontaneous outpouring of respect and appreciation exploding onto the Internet.

What happened isn't entirely clear but sounds like it would make for a Todd Snider song -- one like "Alcohol and Pills" or "Doublewide Blues" -- a song both unflinchingly honest and profoundly sympathetic about the struggle to navigate the harder corners of this life. Todd Snider was a troubadour. The joy, the injustice, the absurdity, the redemption of life -- he wrote about it all.   

To be so in touch with beauty and suffering takes a different kind of soul, possibly with nerves a little closer to their skin than civilians. And to have the skill and talent and willingness to expose one's vulnerability to a crowd in a clear, affecting, and entertaining way? That's so rare.

That kind of soul is fragile and susceptible to harm, not least because the soil that grows a person like that is often rocky. Creativity and mental illness and addiction are cousins and the lines between these states overlap. And then, adding fame into the mix? I know some people who have found a way to navigate it, but it's rough.

People like Todd Snider deserve our protection, that's what I think.

In my dream world, artists could just make their thing and they wouldn’t have to promote it or try to sell it. But of course that’s not how it’s ever been. Artists have always relied on benefactors, whether the Church, or a wealthy merchant, or a supportive spouse like I have, or a profitable system like we had in the 20th Century when music existed in a physical form that could be sold. I don't want to idealize the way things were before streaming. Even then, it was hard to break in and stay in. The truth is that whether it's 2025 and you are pimping your own life for content to monetize on social media, or it's 1955 and you're being pimped by a parasitic promoter who stole your publishing, slogging your way along a punishing concert circuit, it’s always been a grind to get the world to listen to one's earnest heartfelt songs. But there was something magic about the time when people would line up for hours outside a record store to spend their money on music they loved.

One thing that never goes away, though, is the power of a live performance. And Todd Snider, by his own account, loved being in front of a crowd. If you want to read a great interview where he talked with gusto about how great performing was for him, here you go.

They always say to tell your loved ones you love them while they’re here, because you never know when they’re going to be gone. And it would be so nice if instead of the brutal final days he had, Todd Snider could have somehow been enveloped in the sheer volume of love and gratitude that's sprung forth over the last day. I felt the same earlier this year when Jill Sobule died so unexpectedly. There was a similar outpouring for her craft and her quirky, beautiful, soul. 

I wasn't gonna watch the bodycam footage of Snider's arrest outside the hospital in Salt Lake City, but I did watch it. He's talking about his band leaving town, about getting assaulted, about needing a lawyer, about being sick and not having his medication. You can hear him saying, "I'm not homeless, I live in Nashville. I have a band. I'm famous." It's clear that things have gone really wrong and he's in a crisis -- of mental illness, of addiction, of undiagnosed pneumonia -- or maybe all three at the same time.

How do you blame the hospital for calling the cops on a guy being aggressive and belligerent in the lobby? How do you blame the cops for getting him off the street so he can't hurt anyone? I mean, there are conversations to be had about how police and healthcare workers could respond differently to people in mental health crises, but that's for another day. And how do you blame a human being with a history of addiction, a human being with a transcendent perceptiveness about himself and others, who could write a song like "Long Year," for knowing how badly he needs help and trying to get it?

To quote another great songwriter we lost way too young, to listen to Todd Snider was to be "gathered here today to get through this thing called life." So in his honor, I invite you to take 30 minutes from your Sunday and enjoy the work of a great storyteller.

First, a story about a song:

and then the song:

And finally, if you want to go deeper, here's him years later telling "the real story" about the song and the story about the song. 

Life ain't easy getting through / everybody's gonna make things tough on you
But I can tell you right now if you dig what you do / they will never get you down

RIP.