Todd Snider

Todd Snider
The Excitement Plan
(Yep Roc, 2009)

Although he’s a first-class singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Todd Snider has found it hard to get mainstream cred, despite guest shots on high-profile TV shows like Jay Leno’s Tonight Show and David Letterman’s Late Show. He’s nominally a country artist, but his music jumps around from mainstream country to bluegrass, blues, rock, and folk.

Snider grew up on folk and singer-songwriter stuff, and lived all over the United States in his youth, picking up a fondness for country music, or at least the conventions of country songwriting. His problem with the industry, which is also what makes him a unique talent, is that he has a razor-sharp sense of humor and writes lyrics that cut to the bone with their finely wrought observations of human nature and social interactions. He gets tagged as a “funny songwriter,” the kiss of death in an industry that’s deadly serious about the business side of the business, despite all of its legendary excesses and absurdities. Like John Prine, who signed Snider to his Oh Boy label, he laughs with us, not at us. He’s a humorist, not a joker, something many people have a hard time differentiating.

The Excitement Plan was recorded in a two-and-a-half day creative frenzy with producer Don Was, and except for a few pedal steel interludes supplied by Greg Liesz (Dave Alvin, Matthew Sweet), it’s a folky, acoustic-based record. It’s probably the first album to implicitly address the current recession/depression, touching along the way on senseless wars, bad luck, heartache, infidelity, crime, and a general sense of malaise. The songs have strong melodies and are sprinkled throughout with pithy one-liners and hard-won wisdom.

“Don’t Tempt Me”, a co-write with Loretta Lynn who also duets on the tune, is a dark R&B-flavored cheatin’ song, or maybe it’s a song about the fantasies one has about cheating. Jen Gunderman plays some dirty boogie piano to intensify its bleary-eyed humor, and Lynn and Snider sing with a ragged grace befitting the subject matter. It could be the male answer to “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man.” Snider delivers “Barefoot Champagne” with an arrangement that’s halfway between New Orleans and Nashville. It’s the familiar tale of a poor sap in love with a no-good woman, unable to break away because the lovin’ is so good. He sings the tune in a Dr. John drawl, striking the perfect balance between obsession and resignation. On “Greencastle Blues”, Snider wrestles with mortality, limitation, and self-destruction with his usual downbeat humor. He sings, “I do remember my younger days / When I was so certain that driving even faster was gonna get me far,” then delivers the sad punch line: “How do you know when it’s too late?” The Iraq (or maybe Afghan war) is the subject of “Bring ’Em Home”, a solid folk-rock protest song with a bit of crying pedal steel. It gets into the mind of a soldier in four sad, understated verses. “The Last Laugh” is an ironic character sketch—a country blues that gives us the life story of a goodhearted ne’er-do-well who wonders how everyone else seems to get by without trying.

The darkness of the album is framed by two more upbeat tunes. The opener, “Slim Chance”, is an ode to the healing powers of true love, even for those living in “the lap of poverty.” A bluesy acoustic guitar figure gives the track a cheerful optimism as Snider sings, “A slim chance is still a chance.” The album closer, “Good Fortune”, is a New Orleans-style strut, and while it doesn’t close its eyes to the tribulations we all face, its jaunty rhythm lifts your spirit and the hook—“May some good fortune come to you”—will leave you with a satisfied smile.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

Tags: Todd Snider, The Excitement Plan, Yep Roc