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 Read Full BioMumford & Sons are an English folk rock band formed in London in 2007.[2] The band consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ben Lovett (vocals, keyboards, piano), and Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass). Banjo player Winston Marshall left the band in 2021.
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.
Little Lion Man
Mumford & Sons Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning | Line by Line Meaning
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep Little Lion Man
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself
Take all the courage you have left
And waste it on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my
Tremble for yourself, my man
You know that you have seen this all before
Tremble Little Lion Man
You'll never settle any of your scores
Your grace is wasted in your face
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
Now learn from your mother
Or else spend your days biting your own neck
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?
The lyrics in Mumford & Sons’ “Little Lion Man” speaks about a man who weeps for his own shortcomings, who cannot live up to the expectations of his heart. He once was brave and valiant, but as he grew older, the trials of life have taken their toll. The man is now filled with regrets and repeatedly rakes himself over the coals. He realizes his courage has been depleted as he attempts to fix the problems he created in his head. However, the song lets us know that the writer provides grace and support to the man, offering that he is not perfect and did not live up to his expectations either. The writer offers the advice to “learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck.” This verse offers that the man needs to look inward and realize that he can make better choices by learning from past experiences.
The chorus declares that it was not the man’s fault that he fell short of his aspirations. The fault of those failures was solely the writer’s responsibility, and he takes full responsibility for it. The writer admits his mistakes and owns the consequences of his failures, reassuring Little Lion Man that forgiveness is granted. The writer realizes that true strength comes from admitting faults and that bravery is inherent in vulnerability. The repeated verse of "didn't I, my dear?" brings the reader full circle back to the beginning of the song, reminding their counterpart that they are in this flawed existence together.
Line by Line Meaning
Weep for yourself, my man
Feel sorry for yourself, man, because you're not living up to your true potential.
You'll never be what is in your heart
You will never fulfill your deepest desires if you continue on this path.
Weep Little Lion Man
Cry over your lack of bravery and strength.
You're not as brave as you were at the start
You're not as courageous as you once were.
Rate yourself and rake yourself
Evaluate yourself honestly and harshly.
Take all the courage you have left
Use all the bravery you still possess.
And waste it on fixing all the problems
Spend it all on trying to solve issues that only exist in your mind.
That you made in your own head
That you created through your own thoughts and perceptions.
But it was not your fault but mine
It's not your fault, it's my fault.
And it was your heart on the line
You were vulnerable and exposed.
I really fucked it up this time
I made a huge mistake and caused damage.
Didn't I, my dear?
Isn't it true, my love?
Tremble for yourself, my man
Be fearful of yourself and your own actions.
You know that you have seen this all before
You've been through similar situations in the past.
Tremble Little Lion Man
Shake with fear, even though you see yourself as a strong lion.
You'll never settle any of your scores
You'll never resolve any of the issues you have with yourself.
Your grace is wasted in your face
Your elegance and poise is meaningless when you're not true to yourself.
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
Your confidence is the only thing keeping you strong amidst the destruction of your inner turmoil.
Now learn from your mother
Take advice from your parents, especially your mother.
Or else spend your days biting your own neck
Otherwise, you'll spend your time harming yourself and making matters worse.
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
LionTroy
This song saved my life.
I left the love of my life because I didn't think I was enough for her. I left her in another country. I came back... absolutely nothing for me here. I sat in the city, no food or money, just waiting to die.
A few days passed and this this song came on. A construction crew just a door down had this playing.
I cried. Cried unlike I ever have or would again. It reached me like no song ever could.
I got up. I came home. I could move on.
Thank you. I think you saved my life.
Ro Bahaa
Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep little lion man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?
Tremble for yourself, my man,
You know that you have seen this all before
Tremble little lion man,
You'll never settle any of your scores
Your grace is wasted in your face,
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
Now learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?
Kurt H
8 years without my little brother. We played this at his funeral. His son has loved this song his whole life.
Euan
I'm so sorry for your Loss 🙏 Bless you
Gay_Jayden
I'm so sorry for your loss...
Craig Johnson
Sorry for loss
Richard J
Sorry for your loss brother x
Albert Einstein
all my love
Carlos Limmer
I would just like to take a quick moment to appreciate how hard they played those instruments.
David 1 Hubble
Agreed
Dominique Fulton
You hear me went in!
all because she liked a boy
@Secretadmirer you look phony