The Turnpike Troubadours pay tribute to Todd Snider with a surprise studio cover of Snider’s “Just Like Old Times.” The song hit streaming platforms today and arrived with an accompanying video.
Snider has long been associated with East Nashville, but he was a heavy influence on the Red Dirt scene from which Turnpike hails and the Texas music scene where Evan Felker and the band cut their teeth and built a first fanbase in the late 2000s. Snider died on Nov. 14 at 59, a month after releasing his High, Lonesome and Then Some record and days after his tour ended abruptly in Salt Lake City.
The Troubadours showed up to Sunset Sound Studio 3 in Los Angeles, where they recorded their 2025 record The Price of Admission with producer Shooter Jennings, shortly after learning about Snider’s death. They immediately worked up “Just Like Old Times,” which Snider recorded for his The Devil You Know album in 2006 — right about the time that Felker and bassist RC Edwards formed Turnpike Troubadours in Oklahoma.
The video that Turnpike released with their song features footage of the band discussing Snider’s impact on their music, including an exchange in which Felker and Edwards settled on “Just Like Old Times” as the song to cover. The band shared the full interview with Rolling Stone.
“This song, to me, was really eye-opening when I heard it,” Felker tells Edwards. “When that record came out, it’s the first song I remember hearing that described characters that well with that little information. I learned a lot from it. I didn’t know you could even do that.
“Todd was larger than life,” he adds. “You sort of think he’ll be around forever, but unfortunately that’s not the way the world works.”
Felker continues telling Edwards how Snider’s attention to detail in the stories he told shaped Felker’s own songwriting. To which, Edwards responds, “I don’t know that there’s ever been, or ever will be, anyone better at that than him.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.
