Shearwater covers Randy Newman

To address some commenter concern about song choices for Holiday Undercover: We actually encouraged everyone who participated to think outside the Christmas-carol box. (I was hoping against hope that somebody would do "Holiday In Cambodia.") Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg, an Undercover alumni who appeared as a guest with Wye Oak on The Kinks' "Strangers," found a not-quite-Christmas tune to depress all the little boys and girls out there. As you'll see, he did a fantastic job with Randy Newman's "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." His enthusiasm even reached theatrical levels, with the lights turned low and a bit of magic snow falling toward the end. Shearwater's latest record is the excellent The Golden Archipelago, and they've also got an instrumental record available called, strangely enough, Shearwater Is Enron.