Broken Bells' Danger Mouse and Mercer Walk "The High Road" in New Video

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Danger Mouse teamed up with David Lynch on last year's Dark Night of the Soul project, and it seems like the director's dark, inscrutable visual style has rubbed off on the musician. Broken Bells' new video for "The High Road" features the Shins' James Mercer and Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton walking down a desolate desert highway at night, spinning around flashlights and encountering white stallions, burlesque dancers and kids watching a bonfire on a movie screen.

At one point, Mercer and Burton approach a car accident (the victim is another Mercer); a child in pajamas crashes a remote-controlled car into the Bells. Are Mercer and Burton ghosts roaming New Mexico after the accident? Does the video represent one of those "psychogenic fugues" that are such a linchpin in Lynchs' cannon? We're not going to try to make sense of the Sophie Muller-directed clip, but it does work well with the Broken Bells' catchy first single. Watch the video above or on MySpace Music, where "The High Road" debuted.

Broken Bells' self-titled album is due out March 9th. In addition to vinyl, CD and digital options, the group is also offering up "Deluxe Limited Edition Music Box" version of Broken Bells, including a 44-page pocket notebook, glow-in-the-dark stickers, postcards, posters and the compact disc itself, all housed in a box that will play their original "Overture" when opened. Get a closer look at the deluxe box on Broken Bells' site.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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