Todd Snider's "Play a Train Song" performed by Korby Lenker

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I came home from seeing Todd Snider at the Ryman a few nights ago and felt like singing a song I like. I wrote a short story about it too. Excerpt below.

Complete story and more like this https://www.patreon.com/korbylenker

The Ryman seats are actually pews, and the real estate given each butt doesn’t leave much wiggle room. We all crowded into our pew, and right as we all got settled, two big guys stood in the aisle looking at us apologetically. So we all piled out of the pew into the aisle and then in came the two big guys and me after and Blaque after me, and then everyone else.

The big guys were real Todd fans. Longtime. The guy next to me immediately introduced himself. He said his name was “Fire.”

“Fire?” I asked.

“Yeah brother!” said Fire. He then produced a vape pen. “Do you smoke PCP?”

I was sure he was kidding so I gave him my “I’m sure you’re just kidding” chuckle.

Fire shrugged and took a long pull from the vape and breathed it into his jacket. It smelled a little bit mediciney but the smell vanished almost immediately and then the lights went all the way down and Todd Snider came out, followed by his dog, Cowboy Jack.

Halfway through Todd’s first song, the dog was asleep.

What to say about Todd Snider? The years haven’t improved his singing, and the guitar playing will make you feel like you could maybe play the Ryman too. But the charm and the wit and the sheer personality of the man cannot be denied.

At the beginning of the show he said something like, “once when I was younger I asked this old timer what it took to be a songwriter. The guy said, ‘well, I’ll say, make sure you’re never not in a situation where, with 15 minutes notice, you can have all your stuff packed up and ready to move out. You might have a pretty messed up life that way, but I promise you’ll get some good songs out of it.’” Then Todd said “I’m 53 years old and I have to work pretty hard at keeping my life as messed up as it is but I want you to know I do it for you.”

The crowd cheered and he charged into his classic “I Can’t Complain.” Everyone sang along. Fire sang loudest. In fact Fire treated Snider’s banter as one side of a conversation in which he was the other principle participant.

At one point Snider asked the crowd, “Have you ever played a rock concert on LSD?”

“Bring your banana!” yelled Fire.

Snider gave a half disparaging look in our general direction and then launched into a story in which the punchline was that you can successfully make it through a rock and roll performance high on acid if one of your bandmates gives you a banana.

At one point Fire handed me the pen. I know my way around one and I also enjoy breaking a rule now and then so I asked him if it had a button.

“Just pull for 5 seconds and blow it in your sleeve.”

I took that to mean no button, so I pulled for five seconds and blew what ended up being nothing down the sleeve of my jacket. Fire seemed pleased I was on board so that was good enough for me.

I watched the concert and I knew most of the songs and I loved all the songs and I loved the man and I also felt what I can only describe as a pang of conviction. Say what you want about Todd Snider: he’s not everyone’s thing, and I bet he’s not a very loyal friend and I’ve seen him enough times to know that his performances are anything but consistent. But he’s given his whole life over with complete sincerity to something actually worthy. He set out to write one true song, and then another, and another. And everything has been second to that singular pursuit. His life is probably a total mess, but if you asked me what I really thought, I’d say the difference he’s made in my life with the songs he’s written and the way he’s written them, has been worth it.

Somewhere in there Todd played one of my favorites. "Play a Train Song" is about the self-proclaimed mayor of East Nashville, Skip Litz, a man from a long gone iteration of our ever-gentrifying hamlet. It's a sharp portrait of a guy who lived for freedom and pleasure and trouble. Likely broken in several places. And yet, the song implies, Here is a Man Who Lived.

It all went by too fast. When John Prine came up for the encore, Fire handed the pen back to me and this time I saw there was in fact a button. I pushed it and pulled and counted to about 3 before my lungs responded with an Oh Hell No. I let out a coughing fit of noise and smoke that made the whole row in front of me turn around and shake their heads. Fire broke into a fit of laughter. Blaque rolled her eyes, and Todd and John sang Illegal Smile.

We got home and I was kind of mad because I left the T shirt in the Uber but Blaque made us a little nightcap and I sat down and sang Play a Train Song, which to me is a narrative gem on par with the "Pancho and Lefty" or "Tangled Up in Blue" or Gretchen Peters' "Five Minutes”.

Anyway here’s me singing something I love just because.

Oh, and it wasn’t PCP. I knew it.