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James Mercer Torments His Crappy Kids in Shins’ ‘Simple Song’ Clip

If we can make any sweeping assumptions about Shins frontman James Mercer’s personal life, he has concerns about his kids growing up to torment him. The band released its new video for Port of Morrow track "Simple Song" this morning as a free iTunes download (via Stereogum), and in the four-minute clip an old-man Mercer, now dead in his coffin, addresses his shitty, no-good spawn from the grave via video message.

The handful of now-grown kids have ruined his life, destroyed his possessions, and birthday-cake-ed him in the face, and now, at last, he gets his revenge in death: First, by making them be horrible to each other in a fight to find the hidden deed to their his house; then, by punking them and demolishing the house anyway. Immediately.

Directorial duo DANIELS has been at the helm of projects for acts like Battles (remember the Gary Numan-at-the-mall video?) and Chromeo; their skills landed them on many 2011 year-end music video rankings.

The video is now available for free download via iTunes. Port of Morrow is still sadly not out, but it drops next month on March 20 via Columbia and the Shins’ own imprint, Aural Apothecary. They hit the road around then, too.