Todd Snider Comes Out As Peace Queer

Nashville nabob of non-negativity flips the bird at complacency.

By Blurt Staff

Whattaya get when you cross a smart-mouthed, literate singer-songwriter with the current social and political climate? Why, a new Todd Snider album, of course! Peace Queer, due out August 19, is, in Snider’s words, "a record of brevity, humor and hope." It’s the followup to 2006’s The Devil You Know, which wasn’t exactly short on brevity and humor and hope either.

The overtly political Peace Queer takes a bit of a left turn for the outspoken Snider, beginning with the cover photo, which depicts Snider being held at gunpoint by a shirtless hippie. "Clearly, anyone who looks at the photograph can tell that I had been abducted by an international league of peace queers and forced to write protest music. You know, for their cause," says Snider.

The eight tracks on Peace Queer include a Civil War sea shanty, a cover of CCR classic "Fortunate Son," a spoken-word number, a rocket-fueled meditation on contemporary culture ("Stuck On The Corner"), and a Fred Sanford-ish funeral dirge. The emotional centerpiece of the album is the wistful "Ponce Of The Flaming Peace Queer."

"Peace Queer is a six-song cycle, starting with a song called ‘Mission Accomplished’," Snider explains. "In six sentences, the record goes like this: Here’s the kid being told everything’s going to be great. Here’s the reality of that. Here’s that kid when he comes home a sad and banged-up and angry winner. Here’s the breakdown of why I think that’s happening. Here’s the guy in our culture that I think is causing that to happen, and it’s not a president. And then here’s what I think is going to happen to that guy. And then we roll credits."

On Peace Queer, those credits include Patty Griffin, Kevn Kinney, Don Heron, Doug Lancio, Will Kimbrough and others.

"Things happen in this album besides you being told that war is wrong, with a beat," Snider says. "I don’t know that war is wrong. I just know that I’m a peace queer, and I’m totally into it when people aren’t fighting, in my home, at the bar where I hang out, or in a field a million miles away."

Track Listing:

1. Mission Accomplished (because you gotta have faith)

2. The Ballad of Cape Henry

3. Fortunate Son

4. Is This Thing Working?

5. Stuck On The Corner (prelude to a heart attack)

6. Dividing The Estate (a heart attack)

7. Ponce of The Flaming Peace Queer

8. Is This Thing On?