Todd Snider – High, Lonesome And Then Some (Aimless Records/Thirty Tigers) (13th Floor Album Review)
In his latest album High, Lonesome And Then Some, Todd Snider doesn’t just open the window on the crazy world of a women-chasing, hard drinking, itinerant bluesman, he’s opened-up the front passenger door and insisted he’s taking you for a ride through the back alleys of Nashville, across the high plains and, if we’ve got the gas and can stay sober enough, all the way out west to Reno.
On the back seat his accomplices are squashed in: all 8 of them and their instruments. There’s Robbie Crowell with a drumkit, Jackie High, Daniel Leyes and Joe Bisirri adding some percussion. A bass guitar with Sterlng Finlay holding on. Erica Blinn and Brooke Groenemeyer adding some honeyed harmonies and Aaron Lee Tasjan with some more percussion stuff, a guitar and his piano has to ride in the trunk.
You’re squeezing in next to Snider’s guitar and close-enough to hear his voice that can, at times, be barely audible as he struggles to keep it together to stay conscious, let alone drive this big old vehicle.
But drive it he does as he navigates the highs, lows, pitfalls and peaks of the human condition, of broken relationships, failed romances and dead friends.
“I sing about dead friends more than girls these days,” Snider says in the record company’s release with this album. “I’ve never gotten to stop and go, ‘I can’t believe I got away with that, but I did.’ I never did anything I didn’t want to do. And I’m proud of that. I just figured I’d be living in someone’s garage my whole life.”
This is Snider’s 21st album release since he debuted in 1994 with Songs For The Daily Planet. A coming of age, perhaps, as the go-to man of the live-it-to-learn songwriter following in the hallowed footsteps of greats such as Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Buffett and Guy Clark.
The writing is acerbic, hard-nosed and hard-baked as you’d expect from some honest country blues. But there’s also humour and wry observation here: Lou Reed’s twisted take on life is evoked and Tom Wait’s approach to musical composition is more than apparent.
On the opening track, The Human Condition, Snider’s leaning over and you can smell the tequila on his breath, the smoky haze of a recently-smoked joint still lingers in the air.
He’s plucking that guitar, just about keeping a rhythm and a semblance of a blues riff while he explains it’s not his fault it’s just the way he’s made.
I am facing the great unknown, Have to wonder what we’re doing here together
Even though I know I’m leaving here alone,
The people on the back seat wake up, digging the groove and join in after the first verse of the story.
And he’s asking you not to judge him, it’s just the way it is.
Nobody know anybody well enough, To compare another life to their own
Finishing as if it’s meant to go on, Snider’s eyes dart to the side and he starts another line as the back seat chimes along.
On Unforgiveable (Worst Story Ever Told) he’s now relating a story about meeting the legendary figure, the immortal Count of St Germain, given the undying affliction by Jesus after a taunt to carry his cross faster.
It’s one of those stories that isn’t quite believable (but he’s pretty convincing), Snider half speaking, barely singing through his alcohol-cracked voice, but what can you do? You’ll listen anyway.
Right away he starts telling me what sounds like it might be, A very long story on a very long flight
So I tried to be polite but I wasn’t easy because, He dragged that story on and on all night
Unforgivable
Blinn and Groenemeyer coo over some weary bass and minimalist drums. There’s some nifty fretwork in the air from Tasjan and the man himself as the track fades out.
Then Tasjan has jumped way out the back to strike some beautiful piano chords as Snider shifts his focus. It’s like he’s now looking at you like you’re a former lover, almost pleading for another go, on While We Still Have A Chance.
And just as soon as I save enough more money, I’m planning on taking you way too far
So don’t let the sun burn your sad water blue eyes, We don’t want to miss this dance
Let’s go to Reno one more time, While we still have a chance
Snider’s imploring, the band are keeping it together (just) and the girls are filling in the rest of the space with their honeyed voices. He’s closing his eyes and swaying like he’s slow-dancing, leaning a little close to half whisper the last line.
While we still have a chance.
One, Four Five Blues has Snider in sardonic mood. He’s sitting back with a half-open eye, a drunken swagger and accusatory tone, the band are naked on the back seat, instruments barely touched as they pop, whack, ping and smack their way along to Snider’s capricious invective.
I would say along, Along is what I would say you’ve been stringing me
I poured my heart out for you
You give me inconsideration and still expect my gratitude
And somehow he manages to slip in a word uttered only once before just before Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of Our American Cousin at the Ford’s Theatre in Washington way back in 1865. Sockdologizing, or, as Snider says it Sock toe low jizing. The word created for the play as an allegation of plotting and scheming, pertinent to Lincoln’s assassination and to Snider’s complaining.
But now he’s almost bouncing along on the next track, a contrarian jaunt to the mood of It’s Hard To Be Happy.
It’s easy to get busy worrying all night long, But it’s hard to be happy even when there’s nothing wrong
The whole back seat are willing for some uplift and a lighter tone and Snider’s (almost) happy to oblige. He’s properly singing along, but you know where he’s really coming from.
There’s a real swagger and strut to Stoner Yodel #2 (Raelyn Nelson) with a crisp drum beat and faltering bass groove.
But, once again, it’s just a front to cover for the screwed-up despair he feels from another broken amour.
When she said she’d rather be friends I said “That’s what I was just about to say”
But if she ever needs a little something done around the house though you know I’m never too far away
Raelynn Nelson is going to settle for me someday
He’s still holding on with seemingly hopeless faith.
And on the next track, Older Women, it’s like Snider’s suddenly lucid enough to see real clarity. “I have to get my ego out of my love life,and meet some women my own age,” Snider relates about his cover of the Don Covay’s 1971 song Ain’t Nothing a Young Girl Can Do.
Ain’t nothing that a young girl can do for me, Except show me where some older women is
Not quite as funky and up tempo as the original, it’s a just-out-of-slumber groove with the, now familiar, twangs and flicks from Snider’s guitar. This is what he calls a “slow choogle – I wanted us to sound like we’re so high that people think we should speed up.”
The title track, High, Lonesome And Then Some, encompasses everything that Snider is searching for on this record. He acknowledges the painful fuck-up he can be, but he’s also a genuine, honest and real person that just needs someone to love.
High, Lonesome, and Then Some, Still looking for someone, looking for someone like me
The band really have it together on this track, but that slow choogle still pervades. Snider’s hit top gear and we’re careering down the highway, his hands gripping the steering wheel, windows down as the warm prairie air gushes in singing along to the back seat.
The LP closes with the funky The Temptation To Exist, an upbeat, positive and almost hopeful number that carries an infectious groove. There’s a regular rhythm, some nifty lead guitar, shimmying percussion and Snider’s really strumming along on this one.
The temptation to exist, Must’ve been the first one we couldn’t resist
And now, now that list goes on, As I’m hoping it will
Til we’re gone
The groove plays out a while, we’re speeding along to more adventure, more mistakes, more heartache.
But that’s living.
Alex Robertson
High, Lonesome And Then Some is out Friday, Oct. 17 on Aimless Records/Thirty Tigers
Pre-save/pre-order HIGH, LONESOME AND THEN SOME.
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