Mumford & Sons have released four studio albums: Sigh No More (2009), Babel (2012), Wilder Mind (2015), and Delta (2018). Sigh No More peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart and the Billboard 200 in the US, with Babel and Wilder Mind both debuting at number one in the UK and US, the former becoming the fastest-selling rock album of the decade and leading to a headline performance at Glastonbury Festival in 2013. The band has also issued two live albums: Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire (2011) and The Road to Red Rocks (2012).
Mumford & Sons were formed in December 2007 by multi-instrumentalists Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Winston Marshall and Ted Dwane. Band members play acoustic guitar, drums, keyboard instruments, bass guitar, and traditional folk instruments such as banjo, mandolin and resonator guitar. The band name originates from the fact that Marcus Mumford was the most visible member, organizing the band and their performances. Lovett indicated that the name was meant to invoke the sense of an "antiquated family business name".
A handful of similar bands were increasing their visibility in West London around the same time, giving rise to the label "West London folk scene". Mumford downplays that characterisation as an exaggeration—Mumford & Sons and a few other folk acts just happened to be operating in the same general area at the time. In an interview with the Herald Sun, Marcus Mumford said, "It's not folk really. Well, some of it is, and it's certainly not a scene. Someone got over-excited about a few bands who live in a hundred-mile radius and put it in a box to sell it as a package. It's a community, not a scene. It's not exclusive." Having developed in the same musical and cultural environment, Mumford & Sons' sound has been compared to that of artists such as Noah and the Whale, Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling, whose backing band had included Marshall, Mumford, and Dwane.
In early 2008 the band began working with manager Adam Tudhope, who, as part of management company Everybody's, also represents Keane and Laura Marling. It was through Tudhope's connection that Mumford & Sons were exposed to their future A&R at Island, Louis Bloom, who began monitoring the band. Bloom told HitQuarters that they were still at a fledgling state and not yet ready for a label deal: "There was no one there for it, just a few friends, and they needed time to develop. Over the next six months I kept going to see them and they were literally picking up fans every time."
In February 2008, the band completed an extensive UK tour with support from Alessi's Ark, Sons of Noel and Adrian, Peggy Sue and others. June 2008 marked the band's first appearance at the Glastonbury Festival. They also toured Australia with Laura Marling, whose disinclination to interact with audiences encouraged Mumford into the spotlight. The experience helped inform his attitude towards Mumford & Sons audiences, which is to interact frequently and to try to create a comfortable, casual atmosphere. Mumford & Sons' first project was an EP entitled Love Your Ground which took a year to complete and was released in November 2008 on Chess Club Records.
The band began by using bluegrass and folk instrumentation, with the core instruments of acoustic guitar, banjo, piano and a double bass, played with a rhythmic style based in alternative rock and folk. In the documentary Big Easy Express, Marcus Mumford recognizes the Old Crow Medicine Show influence: "I first heard Old Crow’s music when I was, like, 16, 17, and that really got me into, like, folk music, bluegrass. I mean, I’d listened to a lot of Dylan, but I hadn’t really ventured into the country world so much. So Old Crow were the band that made me fall in love with country music." Mumford acknowledges that "the band inspired them to pick up the banjo and start their now famous country nights in London." Ketch Secor, Old Crow front-man, concurs: "Those boys took the message and ran with it.
Much of Mumford & Sons' lyrical content has a strong literary influence, its debut album name deriving from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The track "Sigh No More" includes lines from the play such as Serve God love me and mend, For man is a giddy thing, and One foot in sea and one on shore. The title of the song "Roll Away Your Stone" is an allusion to Macbeth; the song includes the line Stars hide your fires/ And these here are my desires which borrows and pares down Macbeth's line in act 1, scene 4: Stars, hide your fires,/ Let not light see my black and deep desires. Additionally, "The Cave" includes several references to The Odyssey, in particular the sirens that Odysseus encounters on his journey home. The song also contains many references to G.K. Chesterton's book, St. Francis of Assisi, in which Chesterton uses Plato's Cave as a way of explaining how St. Francis views the world from God's perspective. "Little Lion Man" appears to be a retelling in dramatic monologue form of Chretien de Troyes' Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, which is the story of a knight who goes mad after betraying a promise to his wife to return to her. Both "Timshel" and "Dust Bowl Dance" draw heavily from the John Steinbeck novels Of Mice and Men, East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath.
The band's change in sound on their third album was described by Lovett as a "natural departure." At the end of the Babel tour Winston Marshall traded his banjo for electric guitar in sound checks and Mumford started playing more drums as the band jammed on heavy instrumentals and even some Radiohead tunes. Banjo does not feature on the record, an instrument that had become synonymous with the band. NME reported that the band's sound is "More expansive than ever and decidedly heavier, thanks to the shift in instrumentation." The group also employed a full drumkit instead of kick drum. "We've had our standard line-up of instruments for the last six years and we felt like that was our palette, [but] we started picking up other stuff," said Lovett. "It's a very natural departure from some of that rootsier stuff."
Lovett told NME that working with James Ford for Wilder Mind was part of trying something new. "We felt a need for change. Not from Markus [Dravs], but he was so closely attached to those first two records that as we had taken that time off, we wanted to try doing something new. It felt like, if we do our third record with Markus, does that mean we do our ninth and 10th records with Markus? At some point you have to try different things, as we collectively felt like it was time to try other stuff. Markus knows that we might well make the next record with him. We definitely haven't broken up [with Dravs], we're just playing the field!".
The band have won a number of music awards throughout their career, with Sigh No More earning the band the Brit Award for Best British Album in 2011 and six overall Grammy Award nominations. The live performance at the 2011 Grammy ceremony with Bob Dylan and The Avett Brothers led to a surge in popularity for the band in the US. The band received eight total Grammy nominations for Babel and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The band also won the Brit Award for Best British Group in 2013.
Snake Eyes
Mumford & Sons Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And let it flow, this cruelty
Of youth as you fall again
Alone, In the compromise of truth
It's in the eyes
I can tell, you will always be danger
We had it tonight, why do you leave it open?
And the stakes remain too high
For this silent mind
And the shake, the lonely itch
That courses down my spine
To leave a love divine
Don't leave a love divine
It's a water tight excuse
It's in the eyes
I can tell, you will always be danger
We had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?
It's in the eyes
I can tell you will always be danger
How does the earth around your feet
Just slip away?
And abandon, that greets you in the night
With snake eyes, the most precious kind
It's in the eyes!
I can tell, you will always be danger!
We had it tonight! Why do we always seek absolution?
It's in the eyes!
I can tell you will always be danger!
The lyrics of Mumford & Sons’s song “Snake Eyes” seem to be about a feeling of danger and betrayal resulting from a failed relationship. The first stanza introduces the idea of holding something, presumably a relationship, in one’s hands, only to have it slip away due to the cruelty of youth and the compromise of truth. The second stanza refers to the idea that danger can be seen in a person’s eyes, and even though there was something between the couple that night, it was left open to the possibility of betrayal. The chorus repeats the line “It’s in the eyes. I can tell you will always be danger” twice, emphasizing the singer’s feeling of unease.
The third stanza speaks to the pain of loss, as the earth around the singer’s feet slips away, abandoning them in the dark night, represented by snake eyes, which are often associated with deception or duplicitousness. The chorus is repeated twice more, with the final line of the song emphasizing the idea of leaving behind a “love divine,” which is a poignant reminder of the emptiness resulting from a relationship that could have been but was ultimately sabotaged.
Line by Line Meaning
You hold it, in your hands
You have control over this situation or circumstance.
And let it flow, this cruelty
You allow the harshness of life to take its course.
Of youth as you fall again
You repeatedly make the same mistakes, like a young person learning through experience.
Alone, In the compromise of truth
You end up isolated as you compromise your values or beliefs to fit into a particular situation.
It's in the eyes
One's true intentions or nature can be seen by looking into their eyes.
I can tell, you will always be danger
I can sense that you will always be a risky or harmful presence.
We had it tonight, why do you leave it open?
We had a good thing going, so why would you let it slip away?
And the stakes remain too high
The risks or consequences of a certain action or decision are too great.
For this silent mind
For someone who keeps their thoughts and feelings to themselves.
And the shake, the lonely itch
The feeling of uncertainty or unease that comes with being alone.
That courses down my spine
That sends shivers down my back or makes me feel anxious.
To leave a love divine
To abandon something that was once considered sacred or special.
Don't leave a love divine
Don't ruin something that was once cherished or valuable.
It's a water tight excuse
It's an excuse that cannot be refuted or argued against.
How does the earth around your feet
How do you manage to stay grounded or stable despite everything happening around you?
Just slip away?
Disappear or leave without warning or explanation?
And abandon, that greets you in the night
The feeling of loneliness or abandonment that comes with being alone at night.
With snake eyes, the most precious kind
With eyes that are dangerous or deceitful, but also attractive and alluring.
We had it tonight! Why do we always seek absolution?
We had a good thing going, so why do we feel the need to be forgiven or pardoned?
I can tell you will always be danger!
I can sense that you will always pose a threat or potential harm.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: BENJAMIN WALTER DAVID LOVETT, EDWARD JAMES MILTON DWANE, MARCUS OLIVER JOHNSTONE MUMFORD, WINSTON AUBREY ALADAR MARSHALL
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Annemijn Doude Van Troostwijk
Lyrics:
You hold it, in your hands
And let it flow, this cruelty
Of youth as you fall again
Alone, In the compromise of truth
It's in the eyes
I can tell, you will always be danger
We had it tonight, why do you leave it open?
And the stakes remain too high
For this silent mind
And the shake, the lonely itch
That courses down my spine
To leave a love divine
Don't leave a love divine
It's a water tight excuse
It's in the eyes
I can tell, you will always be danger
We had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?
It's in the eyes
I can tell you will always be danger
How does the earth around your feet
Just slip away?
And abandon, that greets you in the night
With snake eyes, the most precious kind
It's in the eyes!
I can tell, you will always be danger!
We had it tonight! Why do we always seek absolution?
It's in the eyes!
I can tell you will always be danger!
Greg Poblete
I love when Mumford songs start out soft then go super hard.
Michael Kapfhamer
Fuck yeah!
seauf
haha
Mark G
It's heavenly
Cleiton Erik Sifuentes
Thanks for the spoilers kkk, I'm jokin'.. Its a great song!!!
Best Hillsong Worship Songs
I wish I could tell you how hugely important this song has been to me. Both my parents died and my husband left me all in a time period of 6 months. I was battling crippling anxiety and fighting it and fighting God. Finally, I just told him, Lord if you want me to have anxiety, I'll have it. Just don't leave me. I felt his peace, and my life began to turn around.
Amy Pink
Listen to roll away your stone by Mumford. It’s the very last line of the song that hits the hardest. That was the most healing song for me. I hope you enjoy!
Ge Ge
It's in the eyes,
I can tell that you'll always be danger
Soulful lyrics!!
Samuel Licona
This is one of the most underrated songs in music history
R P
One of the best ever...... timeless music for appreciative fans