Todd Snider
Sixteen years ago, Todd Snider made the decision to shelve an album that was mastered and about to be sent to the manufacturer. Crank It, We’re Doomed was the culmination of a period of frenzied creativity for Snider, but he had doubts about it.
“At the time, it felt like I was singing about too many things, and there was no theme,” Snider tells the Scene during an interview at his home outside Nashville. “But I also remember feeling like it wasn’t done either, like it needed more songs. I think I wanted it to be a masterpiece, and I knew it wasn’t.”
Over the years, the stereo master of Crank It, We’re Doomed was misplaced, and no copies could be found — it was literally a lost album. But that all changed in the spring when Snider learned that mastering engineer Jim DeMain still had the original master files. After hearing the record for the first time in more than a decade, Snider decided he had been mistaken about the album, which led to it finally being released Nov. 10 via Aimless Records.
In many ways, Crank It, We’re Doomed is the missing link between the two albums that represent Snider’s artistic breakout (East Nashville Skyline and The Devil You Know) and the acclaimed recordings that followed (Peace Queer, The Excitement Plan and Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables). It also foreshadowed his garage-band side project and alter ego, Elmo Buzz and the Eastside Bulldogs.
Snider recorded Crank It with the same core of musicians and producers whom he worked with on Skyline and Devil, including co-producers Eric McConnell and Will Kimbrough, drummer Paul Griffith and violinist Molly Thomas. Like those albums, Crank It was cut at McConnell’s East Nashville studio. Snider envisioned the Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Dylan’s Desire and The Beatles’ The White Album as sonic touchstones for the record. He and his collaborators hit the mark.
“Listening to it now, I feel like it was me and Eric and Kimbrough’s best moment,” Snider says. “I wish I could have been more aware of that at the time, because the three of us had found what I thought was my sound, and it was our third time to go for it.”
Some of the album’s 15 tracks will be familiar to Snider’s fans. Four of the recordings surfaced on Peace Queer, and another was included on The Excitement Plan. That album also featured several more Crank It songs, newly arranged and recorded with producer Don Was in Los Angeles. Agnostic Hymns includes a new arrangement of Jimmy Buffett’s “West Nashville Grand Ballroom Gown”; an earlier version is on Crank It. In many cases, Snider aficionados will prefer the original recordings of the songs that appear here.
There also are a number of previously unreleased tracks. “Juice” is a funky, churning slice of garage rock full of East Nashville references and insider jokes. “But Seriously Folks” shows Snider’s Texas songwriting roots, while “What Made You Do It” is Snider’s reaction to Billy Joe Shaver shooting a man outside a bar in Lorena, Texas, in 2007.
The record’s most interesting track is “Mercer’s Folly.” The title is a nod to one of Snider’s most important mentors, legendary British record man Bob Mercer, who gave Snider two of his record deals. By the time Snider recorded Agnostic Hymns in 2011, the song had morphed into two songs. He took the lyrics from “Mercer’s Folly” and paired them with a new melody for “Big Finish,” and used the original melody for “Brenda,” his homage to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Looking back on the Crank It sessions now, Snider is quick to credit McConnell for helping him and his longtime musical collaborator Kimbrough find the sound he was seeking in that moment.
“I was trying to come up with an original sound, and Eric deserves the most credit for that. He was the visionary.”
