Todd Snider, dead at 59

Singer songwriter and Americana vet Todd Snider died on Friday due to complications from pneumonia. He was 59. A statement was shared today on his website:

Aimless, Inc. Headquarters is heartbroken to share that our Founder, our Folk Hero, our Poet of the World, our Vice President of the Abrupt Change Dept., the Storyteller, our beloved Todd Daniel Snider has departed this world. Where do we find the words for the one who always had the right words, who knew how to distill everything down to its essence with words and song while delivering the most devastating, hilarious, and impactful turn of phrases? Always creating rhyme and meter that immediately felt like an old friend or a favorite blanket. Someone who could almost always find the humor in this crazy ride on Planet Earth.

He relayed so much tenderness and sensitivity through his songs, and showed many of us how to look at the world through a different lens. He got up every morning and started writing, always working towards finding his place among the songwriting giants that sat on his record shelves, those same giants who let him into their lives and took him under their wings, who he studied relentlessly. Guy Clark, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker.

How do we move forward without the one who gave us countless 90 minute distractions from our impending doom? The one who always had 18 minutes to share a story. We’ll do it by carrying his stories and songs that contain messages of love, compassion, and peace with us. Today, put on one of your favorite Todd Snider records and “play it loud enough to wake up all of your neighbors or at least loud enough to always wake yourself up.” We love you Todd, sail on old friend, we’ll see you again out there on the road somewhere down the line. You will always be a force of nature.

“Like A Force of Nature”
If we never get together again
Forgive me for these fools I’ve been
See if you can remember me when
I was listening to my better angels
It’s like a force of nature
Coming over me
I can’t keep myself from moving
It’s like a force of nature
May your hope always outweigh your doubt
Until this old world finally punches you out
May you always play your music
Loud enough to wake up all of your neighbors
Or may you play at least loud enough
To always wake yourself up

Todd Daniel Snider
October 11, 1966 – November 14, 2025

On Friday news that he was hospitalized was shared as well: “After Todd returned home to recover last week, he began having trouble breathing and was admitted to the hospital in Hendersonville, TN. We learned from his doctors that he had been quietly suffering from an undiagnosed case of walking pneumonia.”

Todd had been on tour — his last show being October 30 in Los Angeles — which had been cut short after being mugged in the Salt Lake City area. After being treated for injuries, Snider himself was arrested; according to authorities, he refused to leave the hospital and threatened hospital staffers. “He just said his whole body hurts and then he said he wanted a place to sleep overnight,” a nurse said in a police body camera video. When he was told he couldn’t stay there, “that’s when everything escalated.”

Todd Snider was born in 1966 in Portland, OR and moved to Texas in the mid-’80s where he was inspired by seeing Jerry Jeff Walker play and decided he wanted to be a musician, also taking influence from John Prine (to whom he would be frequently compared), Shel Silverstein, Kris Kristofferson, and others. It wouldn’t be for another decade till he released his debut album, Songs for the Daily Planet, in 1994. After three albums of MCA, Todd signed to Prine’s Oh Boy Records in 2000 and by the end of that decade he’d launched his own label, Aimless, where he released the rest of his discography, including High, Lonesome and Then Some, his 15th album which came out in October.

Rest in peace, Todd