In the early ’90s, Todd Snider was a talent to watch. A droll storyteller and a moralist with an appealing sense of humor, he wrote and performed songs that offered insight one minute and inspiration the next—all topped with his irreverent attitude.
When Snider’s Songs for the Daily Planet was released in 1994, some radio stations discovered a hidden track at the end of the CD—the Dylanesque “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues.” The playful satire, about a Pacific Northwest band that makes it big by refusing to “play a note/Under any circumstances/Silence/Music’s original alternative/Roots grunge”—turned up an unexpected hit on the album-rock charts.
The Portland, Oregon native hit the roadhouses of America—he debuted in Colorado performing at the Bluebird Theater in Denver and at the Fox Theatre in Boulder—but he wouldn’t play the song. “I’m a cowboy singer,” Snider, then 27, mused. “I’m the last person that anybody should ask about Eddie Vedder or Kurt Cobain, but people ask me about them all the time. It’s that damn song.”
Snider had begun his musical experience by hoboing in the mid-Eighties. “For me, singing has always been a small, simple thing, the only way I knew how to take care of myself. I never made a decision to be a star or even make records. I knew I could put together words and play guitar. And I guess I was always kinda opinionated. I only went to college the first day. After that, I found the music that freaked me out—when disco was happening, Nashville rocked! Listening to Jerry Jeff Walker opened the door to John Prine and Billy Joe Shaver and Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson and Guy Clark and Bobby Bare.”
Snider landed in Memphis, patterning his ersatz country-rock band, the Nervous Wrecks, after that music, and Jimmy Buffett signed him to his Margaritaville Records. “Those early records of his, A1A and Living and Dying in 3/4 Time—Jimmy Buffett taught me a lot before I met him,” Snider chuckled. “He’s letting me come up with my own ideas. So far, the record company hasn’t asked me to change my clothes.”
Snider might have been barefoot and a little scruffy, but his songwriting at times bordered on the exceptional. The brightest moments on Songs for the Daily Planet were crazy but honest slacker odes and pensive recollections like “Alright Guy” and “You Think You Know Somebody.”
And, of course, there was “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues.” The tune wasn’t anti-flannel as much as it was a wise-ass commentary on the current music business. “That’s a real personal song,” Snider said. “Three years ago, a guy from Capitol Records said, ‘You wanna make a record?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ I went in and tried to expound on that too-country-for-rock/too-rock-for-country sound and it got weird. They said, ‘You’ve either gotta rock or be country.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t have to do any of them.’ And I left. We got dropped by Capitol, and not long after, I was playing one of them things where the record people come, a ‘showcase.’ And that day I made up that song for that show. I never intended to use it on my debut album.”
Snider reconsidered when a Canadian rock critic heard a tape and named it his No. 1 song of the year. But the Songs for the Daily Planet packaging was complete, so “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” was tacked on, unlisted.
“This has definitely been a different year,” Snider reflected on 1994. “You can feel the pressure in your body, it works your back. But I don’t really think about things like money anymore. In 10 years, when this is all over, I may look back and go, ‘Wow, I’m really broke and I had some song about Seattle…’ I’m not gonna worry about that. I’m hoping that I get into heaven, and other than that, this is all nice and fun. I hope that doesn’t sound like a ‘heavy rock dude’ talking, but it just seems like when money creeps around in bulk, people tend to freak out. I guess that’s why it’s hard to be a rock star from Seattle.”
By 2002, the hysterically funny and engaging entertainer had signed with his mentor Prine’s independent Oh Boy imprint. Like Prine, his stylistic forefather, Snider assembled songs from pieces of country, blues and folk, and they were often poignant, sometimes off-kilter and always sincere. Stoked on translating every aspect of the human condition into straightforward, startling truths, New Condition confirmed his talent. In “Broke,” a minor-league criminal robs a grocery store that keeps his overextended credit card. There were intimations of mortality at a class reunion (“Class of ‘85”) and such sardonic nuggets as “Statistician’s Blues.” He covered Prine’s “Crooked Piece of Time,” with Prine joining him on background vocals.
“When people go, ‘You’re the young John Prine,’ I go, ‘Yeah, I hope so!’ We all want to be who we are, but he’s my idol—I stalked him in my teens, all I ever did was go see him in concert. Being hooked in with him, I love it.”
Snider supported New Condition with a tour, including a show at the Boulder Theater. “I’m working hard at making better records—I’m learning all the time. But you don’t ever have enough time, and all that gear is different. Besides, I just like to play live. I’ve always felt real comfortable about performing. If I come up with a new song, my first instinct isn’t, ‘Oh, cool, I’m going to record this.’ My head goes, ‘I like this, I’m going to play it.’
Snider was a cult hero in Americana circles, known for entertaining crowds with little more than an acoustic guitar, harmonica and his story-telling genius, delivering wry, politically charged sentiments about battered but unbroken outcasts and hippies. Reviews called 2003’s Near Truths and Hotel Rooms, his first live album, closer to a comedy act than a concert; the “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” track was recorded at a Boulder Theater show.
In 2013, Snider fronted Hard Working Americans, a collaboration of all-star musical lifers from the jam-band scene. The first concert was a performance at the Boulder Theater, a sold-out benefit for Colorado flood relief. “I wanted to poke fun at the flag-waving people who think that the name ‘hard-working Americans’ only applies to them,” Snider stated. “It’s like Woody Guthrie said—‘Music should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’”
Todd Snider passed away on November 15, 2025 at the age of 59.
