Todd Snider, the sharp-tongued folk satirist and soulful Americana writer, has died at 59.
Todd Snider, the offbeat poet who chronicled life’s oddballs, underdogs, and gentle disasters, has died at age 59. His publicist confirmed he passed away from pneumonia in Nashville on November 14.
Snider’s death comes just weeks after he abruptly cancelled the remaining dates of his High, Lonesome, and Then Sometour, following a violent assault outside a Salt Lake City hotel that left him with serious injuries. At the time, his team announced he’d be off the road indefinitely to undergo treatment.
The news rattled fans who had long admired his grit, the way he could turn pain, chaos, or pure absurdity into something warm and human.
His songs were equal parts wink and wound: sharp with satire, heavy with empathy, always drifting between mischief and melancholy.
Across more than a dozen albums, Snider built a reputation as Nashville’s lovable rogue, a musician uninterested in polish, but completely devoted to truth-telling.
Early hits like “Alright Guy” and “Conservative, Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males” made him a cult favourite, while legends like John Prine and Jimmy Buffett championed him from the start.
His writing was the kind that drew other artists in: Loretta Lynn, Tom Jones, Billy Joe Shaver, and Jack Ingram all covered his work, sensing the honesty beneath his sly delivery.
Even as he sang about addiction, grief, or life’s blunted corners, he did so without judgement, moving through stories the way a friend might confide over a cigarette on a front porch.
Born in Portland and famously restless, Snider spent his early years drifting between cities until he found his footing among the songwriters of Austin and Memphis. A stint under Buffett’s Margaritaville label launched his recording career, but it was his connection to Prine, who later signed him to Oh Boy Records, that allowed him to shape his music on his own eccentric terms.
Through years of acclaimed albums, crippling back pain, public battles with opioids, and constant reinvention, Snider remained a fiercely authentic live performer.
His concerts often felt like storytelling sessions with guitar interludes: rambling, hilarious, profound, and unexpectedly intimate.
“I’m sure I don’t have any answers,” he once said, “and I hope no one comes to my songs expecting them.”
