Live Review: WATCH: The Shins 'Simple Song'

There’s nothing simple about the new music video from THE SHINS for their first single of 2012 ‘Simple Song’. Not exactly an upbeat companion to the cheerful-sounding track, the video features Shins band members as a dysfunctional family at their father’s wake.

Vocalist Richard Mercer, the deceased father, speaks from the dead, instructing his children to search for his will in the house leading to a frenzied race by the Tenebaum-style trio of siblings.

With a nod to Paul Simon and his poetry on the heartaches of life, the video articulates the past regrets of a messed-up life while looking hopefully towards the realistic future. While literally focusing on the cruelty of children and the misery of a loveless home, ‘Simple Song’ resonates as a microcosm of how we deal with conflict in our lives and the inevitability of pain: “love’s such a delicate thing that we do.”

It’s almost like a short film, but not quite as emotionally rich and theatrical as their earlier pieces. There are also whispers that THE SHINS may be heading down under for this year’s Splendour In The Grass. Stay tuned…

Words by Antigone Anagnostellis.

WATCH MORE NEW VIDEOS HERE