During the COVID pandemic, Todd Snider holed up at his Purple Building studio in East Nashville where he performed weekly livestreams of songs and stories. By the time he was allowed back out on the road, the singer-songwriter had delivered full-album performances of his entire discography. Now as he is once again off the road, this time due to a health issue, Snider has decided to release all 11 solo, “unplugged” performances under the banner All My Songs, all for free on his website (as well as streaming services).
Snider, 57, revealed the plan in a new interview with Rolling Stone where he also disclosed his diagnosis of stenosis (lower back issues). While not debilitating, the condition will keep Todd off the road for now, a strange predicament for the lifelong traveling bard, though one he is more prepared for in the wake of the pandemic.
“I haven’t played in 18 months, but I feel like I could do it tomorrow,” Snider said when asked if his back issues will prevent him from playing live in the near future. “It’s not as dramatic as it sounds, because I could probably play tonight for sure. But it would hurt. I would probably take drugs. If I can fix it, then I will. I have a pile of songs, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with them. I might just sing them to my friends.”
The release rollout for All My Songs will begin on February 23rd with a re-recording of Snider’s 1994 debut Songs for the Daily Planet. Snider will drop a “new” album every month, moving chronologically through his discography until December 27th when the series wraps with his 2021 album First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder. Late last year, Snider released his “lost” 2007 album Crank It, We’re Doomed, which featured many songs that wound up on subsequent LPs Peace Queer, The Excitement Plan, and Eastside Bulldogs, all of which will arrive as a single live album on September 27th.
Related: The Art Of Getting Lost With Todd Snider [Interview]
As far as giving the albums away for free on his website, Snider commented, “I’ve put out so many records and all the songs have been out there, and it would have felt weird to charge. It would have felt like, ‘Hey, I had this idea, and how about you give me money for all this?’ I don’t think I make any bread off it. But I think every month there’s a new bullshit T-shirt on the website, an ‘exit through the gift shop’ angle, I guess.”
Of course, this entire campaign is reminiscent of what Earth’s biggest pop star Taylor Swift recently did with her discography. After the rights to her first six albums were sold to a private equity firm via their acquisition of her first label Big Machine Records, the superstar went about re-recording all of her albums for new “Taylor’s Versions” in order to seize the means of production. She now owns the rights to all of her music and, in the process, sent all of her previous releases back into the charts.
Snider, however, has no similarly grandiose strategy.
“I can’t believe she pulled that off. And people like it,” Snider commented on Swift’s campaign. “I remember when I was young, country stars would do that. They would be those records you’d accidentally buy in a truck shop, and you’d feel like you got screwed, like, ‘Oh, this ain’t the original Merle Haggard song.’”
To keep him busy and fans engaged while he’s off the road, Snider also recently launched a Substack subscription service. The Snider Files, as it’s known, regularly floods fans’ inboxes with previously unpublished media, playlists, poems, photographs, interviews, and much more, all compiled by veteran rock journalist Daryl Sanders.
Read the full Rolling Stone interview with Todd Snider on his decision to re-release his discography here. See below for the full release schedule. Revisit Live For Live Music‘s recent interview with Snider on Crank It, We’re Doomed here.
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