Shuffle It All: Todd Snider's 'Viva Satellite'

An ongoing series where I revisit a favorite album I haven't heard in a while. The first installment: When Todd Snider leaned into Tom Petty, Dan Baird, Jesus, and "The Joker".

Viva Satellite is my favorite Todd Snider album. But it seems to be everyone else’s least favorite; especially MCA, who dropped him because of it.

Snider has played the role of quirky, wise-ass folk troubadour for over 30 years, but as he’s shown on several occasions, he can also rock with the best of ‘em. Whether he’s fronting the Hard Working Americans or the Nervous Wrecks, Snider channels the effortless hillbilly swagger of Dan Baird (who backed him on guitar during this time) and Jason Ringenberg with a strong ear toward Tom Petty at his most Floridian.

In 1998, his third album, Viva Satellite, jumped headlong into the rock’n’roll he hinted at on both Songs from the Daily Planet and its follow-up, Step Right Up.

Case in point: What should’ve been a rock radio hit at the time, “I Am, Too” walks a sly line between Shake Your Moneymaker-era Black Crowes and a long-lost Gimme Back My Bullets-era Skynyrd outtake. This performance for HBO also finds Snider looking less like a stoned folkie and more like a hippie-fied roots rock Iggy Pop. Along with the mighty Will Kimbrough on guitar, Snider’s Nervous Wrecks threaten to burn down the studio.

Viva Satellite was actually the band’s name at the time, so they just called the album after the band. Instead of going into detail about the ins and outs of the making of the record, it’s best to hear it from Snider himself. He’s in the process of re-recording his catalog (yes, just like Taylor Swift!), but doing it in a really cool way. It’s just him and an acoustic guitar and sometimes a piano. He peppers the songs with memories, anecdotes, and just random bullshit throughout. It’s a hoot. (I’ll link it at the bottom.)

So instead of all the dirty details, I’ll just share some of my favorite moments from the album, like the Tom Petty-fronting-Crazy Horse vibe of “Out All Night”…

…or the perfect ne’er do wellness of Will Kimbrough’s “Godsend”. If ever there was a song the Yayhoos should reunite and cover, it’s this one…

Then there’s “Once He Finds Us”. I love gospel music. I was brought up Southern Baptist. These chord changes and this type of phrasing are buried deep into my bones. If it’s the Fairfield Four or the Blind Boys from either Alabama or Mississippi, I’m in. Shirley Caesar? Oh, yes. The Staple Singers? Al Green? All day, every day. But don’t come at me with Bill Gaither or any of that. No, thank you. I’m moved more by the imperfections of the heathens, the sinners pleading for forgiveness, for salvation. I believe there’s more conviction, soul, and feeling in Kristofferson’s “Why Me, Lord”, Tom Waits’s “Jesus Gonna Be Here”, Hank Williams’s “I Saw the Light”, Billy Joe Shaver’s “Get Thee Behind Me, Satan”, Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”, than in all the stuff they play on those “Christian Radio” stations. But, hey - that’s just me. (Looking back at that paragraph, there’s a mixtape idea for ya…)

Snider’s “Once He Finds Us” fits that mold for me.

Speaking of the Yayhoos and Dan Baird, here’s the best song they never wrote…

My least favorite song on Viva Satellite is easily his cover of “The Joker”. I mean, it’s OK, but anyone who’s been in a cover band - including yours truly - has covered this one. It’s just…unnecessary. If you check his “Purple Version” of the album (link below), he explains why it’s here. Basically, it was out of his hands; just perfectly normal record company shenanigans.

Nice use of both a drum machine and clavinet though…

Viva Satellite wasn’t all rock in your face and holy rollin’ hallelujah, though. Snider’s inner folkie just couldn’t help himself and he came up with one of his most direct, simple, and all-around best songs in “I Can’t Complain”.

Then there’s “Double Wide Blues”. With a nod to David Allan Coe, Jerry Jeff Walker, and John Prine, Snider simply details life in a Memphis trailer park. However, when the song was released, I didn’t know how to react. It was funny and poignant all at once, a talent that Snider shares with most all my favorite songwriters. The thing is, I was living in a single wide at the time, and it made me a little envious of the song’s characters, with their fancy-ass double wides. Oh, well. I didn’t live in a trailer park, so I guess…I can’t complain.

So that’s it. Now go find yourself a copy of Viva Satellite and appreciate it for what it is, a damn good rock’n’roll record that was unfairly maligned at the time.

Let’s send this post off with the man himself, sharing stories and playing all the songs from Viva Satellite. See you next week when we’ll jump a year ahead and reflect on the best of 1999.