An Alright Guy

I met Todd in1991.

I was waiting tables at the Bottom Line. I know that sounds like a strip club but it was actually a neighborhood pub in East Memphis where there now stands a TJ Mulligans. It was smaller when it was The Bottom Line - just the one long room with a bar that ran the length of one side.

Paul, the guy who owned Bottom Line, also owned Poplar Lounge in Midtown. Poplar Lounge had a decades long hole-in-the-wall history until the 80s when Memphis State students discovered it and made it their own. Poplar Lounge had only two bartenders and live music on the weekends. Paul started $1 beer on Wednesday nights and the place was packed with college kids. I first heard about it from my friend, Kim, who couldn't stop banging on about $1 George Killians longnecks. Soon, Paul decided to add a very limited food menu that night for $1 - sliders, fries, wings - everything was a dollar. When he added the food menu, he decided to try out one waitress to help facilitate orders in and out of the kitchen. He asked me if I was interested.

And that's how I became The Poplar Lounge Girl. Because there never was waitresses there. Just me, on Wednesday night. Everyone Susan and I knew were there, usually on the patio, where Paul had added a third bartender on Wednesday nights. It was loads of fun and I made great money.

One evening I was there late, my shift done. Having a beer at the bar. And the guy next to me starts talking to me. He was tall - way taller than my 5'2 self. He had longish hair - what we used to call "dirty blonde." And he had a microphone sitting on the bar next to him.

He had sung at the Lounge recently and left his mic. He'd walked up there to retrieve it, even though he lived several miles away. We talked for a while. I ended up giving him a ride home. He asked for my phone number. I gave it to him.

When I got home I asked my roommate, Susan, "Have you ever heard of a singer in town named Todd Snider?" She had. "Rumor has it he just got the same record deal in Nashville that Garth Brooks has." Now that wasn't entirely true, but he did have a record deal with MCA.

At the time, Todd was playing Poplar Lounge, the Highland Cue poolhall, the Daily Planet, which was another small club with live music near the University. We talked on the phone. He'd tell me where he was playing. I showed up. We hung out. I'd drive him home.

His house in Midtown was small and had only a few pieces of furniture in it: A desk (with a typewriter) and folding chair, a rocking chair, a mattress on the floor. A double-wide bookshelf overstuffed with books and lots of records and cassette tapes. I thought it was cool and true to his barefoot hippie vibe. I sent him a postcard with some quote from Thoreau about humans not needing material things in life. He thought it was cool. Then he told me his long-term girlfriend had recently moved out and taken everything with her.

But the lack-of-possessions-hippie vibe was truly at the core of his personality. The whole summer that I knew and hung out with Todd, he never had a car (and look, there is no public transit in Memphis) and he never wore shoes. He was just a barefoot hippie relying on his own autonomy and the kindness of friends and strangers.

He wrote music. He listened to music. He typed letters to the Mayor of Memphis encouraging him to make choices that benefited the people. On nights he wasn't playing somewhere, he drank cheap wine out of the bottle with homeless people on his front stoop.

This is what made Todd the powerful poet and storyteller that he was: He cared not a whit for material possessions. All he wanted to do was play music and connect with people. That's it. Anyone who's been to one of his shows would see it. He cared about people, about people's stories - all people, but especially those who were socially powerless, or had no voice. Todd wanted to die young and happy and lived that way.

Todd was super into REM at the time. We listened to a lot of REM. And Tom Petty. His favorite song on the Great Wide Open was the gunslinger song. Looking back, it feels a lot like something he would write.

One night when I was there, he got up out of bed, turned on REM and came back wearing a short-sleeved rugby-striped t-shirt in the brightest safety alert colors of orange and yellow. "Have you ever seen a piece of clothing that is LESS ME than this??" he laughed. Then he told me that was his Christmas present from his family last year. That told me a lot about his family of origin and why he wandered away from Oregon.

Todd Snider & John Prine

He told me his story - how he'd traveled around chasing after musicians he admired, hoping to meet them, learn from them, make them a mentor, a friend, a collaborator. From Texas, he came to Memphis, in search of Keith Sykes. Todd was fun and talented and likeable and nonthreatening (peace queer) and he connected with these targets every time.

He had fun stories even then. He told me about Keith taking him to Nashville to have him play for Jimmy Buffett. They were driving in Keith's car when his car phone rang. It was Jimmy Buffett, behind them on the highway. Like all of his storytelling, Todd still was amazed in a "what is my life??" way that Jimmy Buffett called the car he was riding in. Jimmy Buffett later gave Todd a music deal with his production company.

He had a hanger-on who was kind of serving as his manager at the time. I wish I could remember his name. Older than us, dark hair. He was around a lot. Todd said one time the guy relocated to another city and Todd was still playing gigs in Memphis. He got asked to play some event at the new Hickory Ridge shopping mall. His retelling of the gig was so funny because it absolutely went against brand for him, and he knew that. He said he was sitting on a stool on a small stage, strumming his guitar, singing into a mic, and he kept feeling something hitting him. When he finished his song he looked up, and on the second floor looking down at him was his friend the manager, throwing candies at him. "I leave town and you're playing fucking shopping malls!" he yelled down.

Todd was not my boyfriend. He wasn't reliable like that. I would go several days without hearing from him. Then he'd call and we'd hang out. Drink beer. Listen to music. Sing. Have sex. He was surprised to learn that I sang and played the piano but never learned to play guitar. It was summertime. We were young. Life was all about music and fun.

For several years I have said that I have only one regret in life: I wish when I was single in my 20s, that Susan and I had just HAD FUN and not been testing out husbands all the time. I tell young women this now: Have fun in your youth and let love find you organically when you're older. But we were far too influenced by societal expectations and we considered the possibility that each guy we dated could be THE ONE???

Eventually, toward the end of the summer, I made the decision that you see so often in romcoms: I needed to end it with the unreliable guy and find someone who was ready to be serious about me. The last time I saw him play was at the back room of the Highland Cue. He walked me out when I left. We stood on the Highland sidewalk in front of Newby's, and I told him that it's been fun but I need to move on. He was unbothered by this statement. He'd probably heard it before. And it was in his nature to bring people into his circle and release them from it with the same sense of nonchalance and acceptance.

He pulled me close. He kissed me so powerfully that my knees buckled. And I went home. That was the end of my Summer with Todd Snider.

A few years later, I was working for St Jude and there was a fund-raising concert at the Orpheum. Todd was one of the artists. By then he had a few albums out. I went backstage and he was so happy to see me. He hugged me hard and we caught up a bit. He'd married and had bought a place in Nashville by then. I'd married and had a child. He was wearing shoes. He told the band members back stage that we used to date. At least I can believe he remembered me fondly. And, you know...remembered me.

That's the last time I saw Todd. I've followed his career and listened to his music. It makes me happy to see that he remained his authentic self. Sometimes things may have gotten out of hand, but Todd just wasn't afraid of living, and, like his outlaw musical heroes, he wasn't afraid of consequences. Going to jail would just make a good story and a good song. He lived authentically and died young and happy.

When John Prine died, Todd told Rolling Stone, "If there's not a heaven, they oughta get one together pretty quick, because John's coming." If there is a heaven, I'm sure Jerry Jeff and John and Jimmy and Tom are all waiting on him. I hope there are guitars and harmonicas there.