We have a love/meh relationship with Andrew Bird’s music.  He has recorded one of our all-time favorite covers (listen at bottom to his cover of the Handsome Family’s Don’t Be Scared), and we’ve loved several of his albums.  But the whistlin’-and-loopin’ thing wore us out completely.   While we never denied Bird’s multiple talents, so much of it seemed so insular and tedious for so long.  But we could be wrong.  Exhibit A for Bird’s case can be found below.

Last night, with the great David Letterman once again audience-less, Andrew Bird and Tift Merritt (one of our favorite femme singer-songwriters) stepped up to the microphone as replacement for the originally scheduled David Byrne and St. Vincent.  Check out below their sterling cover of Townes Van Zandt’s day-after apropos, If I Needed You. The song appears on Bird’s most recent album, Hands of Glory.  We’re going to have to get our hands on that one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnUU8NQNVfs&feature=em-uploademail-new