Watch a Coyote Ride the MAX in Modest Mouse's New Video

Based on a true story that also inspired a Sleater-Kinney song.

By MATTHEW SINGER

In what I can only assume is an attempt to offset all the attention the Decemberists and Sleater-Kinney have been receiving the past week, Modest Mouse has revealed another new song from its upcoming album, and given it a Portland-centric video.

In this clip for "Coyotes," a slow-building track from the soon to be released Strangers To Ourselves, a lonely Canis latrans takes a ride on the MAX. That's basically all that happens, but it's a really, really cute coyote, so it's totally worth watching even if the speakers on your computer are currently incapacitated.

Also, fun fact: As older-school Portlanders might remember, back in 2002, a coyote actually did a hitch a ride on the MAX, hopping on the Red Line at Portland International Airport before being scuttled off by the airport's wildlife specialists. That incident also inspired Sleater-Kinney to write "Light Rail Coyote," which appears on 2002's One Beat. We don't know who that coyote was or what it's doing now, but I believe it's safe to call him or her the most influential canid in the history of Portland music—at least until some band named OR-7 gets a 7.6 rating from Pitchfork, anyway.

Strangers To Ourselves is out March 3. 

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