Artist Spotlight - Excerpt from New Todd Snider Book

The late, great folksinger Todd Snider started out as a songwriting student studying under celebrated wordsmith Kent Finlay in Central Texas before he became a modern musical icon. Alt. Country Specialty Chart’s own Jenni Finlay – who lived under the same roof as Snider for three years when he crashed on the family’s couch as a teenager – recounts those early days.

“Todd showed up at my dad’s venue Cheatham Street Warehouse with two songs: ‘Fat Chicks on Mopeds’ and ‘Bus Tub Stew,’” Finlay says. “Dad saw potential knew how to help him grow as a songwriter. ‘Fat Chicks’ and ‘Bus Tub’ were funny songs, but Dad taught Todd how to be clever-funny and not quirky-funny with his word and phrases.” 

Find the following stories and more in the recently released book East Nashville Skyline: The Songwriting Legacy of Todd Snider (Texas A&M University Press). The book hit shelves just weeks after Snider’s untimely passing in mid-November 2025.

Alt. Country Specialty Chart: Talk about any early Todd songs you remember.

Jenni Finlay: Todd wrote “Happy Hour Hero” about his dad pretty soon after “Bus Tub” and “Fat Chicks.” “Happy Hour Hero” describes those old men who sit at the bar there every night. Todd was inspired to write the song by real guys at this weekly gig he, john Arthur martinez, my dad, and I would play at Katy Station in San Marcos, Texas. Those guys he describes in the song always say they’re so busy. They’re about to fly out for some important business trip and have the busted Rolex to prove how big time they supposedly were. Of course, they’re always right back at the bar at five o’clock the next day.

How old were you when Todd started staying at your house?

I was about seven years old when Todd came around and was crashing at our house. It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up and find another songwriter sleeping on the couch in those days. Dad welcomed anybody and everybody who was writing their own original songs a place to eat and sleep. Todd was different, though. All the songwriters who would come around were from the area, but Todd was from Portland, Oregon, and he talked like someone we had never heard. He would say stuff like, “Slap me some skin.” My brother Sterling and I were like, “Wow. What does that mean?” Todd taught us all these other cool catch phrases that he had brought in from the West Coast. He was so funny and cool – easily the coolest person we knew. Dad took a big liking to him right away. He saw great potential in Todd when he brought him home, and Todd ended up living with us for about three years.

Describe Todd as a songwriting student.

Todd slept on our camping air mattress in the music room where Dad had his electric Roland piano. Dad taught Todd how to make his songs better and more special. Todd really took to it and studied like a serious student. Dad taught him to do charts and lyrics and played him Bobby Bare, Kris Kristofferson, and Shel Silverstein songs. He made Todd be a better songwriter. Also, dad would instruct Todd to do certain things and was very peculiar and specific with his lessons. He would have Todd walk to the oak tree and back. The oak tree is a significant place on our property. We had one hundred acres and the oak tree was the halfway point. Todd had to walk fifty acres slowly and think about what his next song was gonna be. Those lessons obviously resonated with Todd. He still walks out the front door today when he has a song idea and doesn’t come back until he writes it. They were always writing. Todd even wrote a song with my mother Diana called “Songwriter’s Prayer.”

Tell the story behind Todd and Kent writing ‘Who Says It’s Lonely at the Top.’

Dad and Todd were trying to write a Shel Silverstein song for Bobby Bare when they wrote “Who Says It’s Lonely at the Top.” In fact, I believe Dad taught Todd how to drink whiskey that night. Dad brought a bottle of whiskey, a Sprite, and a cup of ice into the music room one night. He wanted to teach Todd how to drink Jack Daniels properly. He put everything down. Then he took the Sprite away. “Son,” he said. “This is how you do it.” Dad would make up songs out of his head. Todd writes what he knows. He picks up stuff from television and people watching. I know exactly who wrote which lines in [the Finlay and Snider cowrite] “Statistician’s Blues.” “They say sixty-five percent of all statistics are made up right there on the spot” came off the bathroom wall at Cheatham. Dad saw that. Todd wrote the first line. Then Dad wrote the second line. That’s how they were.

Explain exactly what that means. How were your dad and Todd?

Dad thought of Todd as so many things – a brother, a son, a co-conspirator. They ran around together. Everybody knew that Todd was dad’s favorite and nobody could mess with that. Dad would drop everything anytime Todd would show up. He would always call and say, “What are you working on?” That was his big deal. He always wanted Todd to be writing. All the other songwriters understood they could never be Todd to my dad. He was his favorite cowriter. He once said, “It’s like I’m writing with myself when I write with Todd.” Todd probably had written a hundred songs by the time he left for Memphis because he had been studying under my dad so much. I remember the first great song I got to witness. I was sitting way up on a palate in the music room.

What was that song called?

The song was called “Me and This Guitar,” which was one of my favorites. I saw the process, which was almost as beautiful as the song. I remember when they were working on the lines, “I popped a Dr. Pepper and I drifted away / Hopped up on a toolbox and I began to play” They came up with some great lines for the choruses like the beginning of the first one, “ You know me and this guitar have seen brighter days / wrote better songs and traveled so far / You know we traveled far Now all it’s strings are rusted, all my dreams are busted / He said, Son there are no more songs left in this old guitar.” Then they ended the middle chorus with, “We’d sit beneath the moon together just picking to the stars / We’ve been together through many years and shared a lot of tears and played a lot of smoky bars / We’d sit beneath the moon together just picking to the stars / Now there’s no more songs left in this old guitar.”  

Did Todd do anything around your house besides writing songs all the time?

Live-in songwriters had a job to earn their keep at our house like wash the dishes, shovel the ashes out of our enormous fireplace, sweep the porch, cut the grass. Todd’s job was to drive Sterling to his weekly Cub Scout meetings. That could explain a lot about my brother today. Todd had a big, faded Buick LeSabre called the Peach with a CB radio connected to an outside speaker that could blast all over San Marcos. He left San Marcos for Memphis in the Peach, but the car broke down somewhere around Waxahachie. It might still be right there in its tracks. If anyone finds it, they should put a plaque on that thing – or maybe some cool graffiti. We never found out how Todd actually got to Memphis. Pretty sure he doesn’t know either.

Todd started writing political songs when he got to Nashville. Was he into politics earlier?

Todd started writing political songs when he was living with us. His first was “Stand Up If You’re Nineteen.” Great song. Todd wrote that when the drinking age went up from eighteen to twenty one. Todd was nineteen and pissed off. Then he wrote a beautiful song called “I’m Gonna Rest in Peace.” I don’t know if these songs are even around anywhere anymore.

Didn’t Todd write a song for your dad after he moved away from San Marcos?

Yeah, Todd wrote “Feeling at Home” after he went to Memphis. Dad was really upset when Todd moved. He didn’t understand why Todd would leave, but everybody has to grow. Todd moved to Memphis. I moved to Nashville. Broke up our family band. Dad was upset with me, too. Dad really didn’t understand why either of us would want to live somewhere else. Dad wanted Todd and me around all the time, but we had to move on. I don’t think that “Feeling at Home” is even recorded. It was an answering machine message. Todd called and played this whole song on the phone about our house by the river. It made Dad cry so hard. They made up eventually and kept in touch until the day my dad died. Todd would bring people down just to see the house and river and bask in the glory of what that music thing was.

– Brian T. Atkinson