Mumford & Sons are an English folk rock band formed in London in 2007.[2] T… Read Full Bio ↴Mumford & 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.

Broken Crown
Mumford & Sons Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Touch my mouth
And hold my tongue
I'll never be your chosen one
I'll be home, safely tucked away
Well you can't tempt me if I don't see the day

The pull on my flesh was just too strong
It stifled the choice and the air in my lungs

Better not to breathe than to breathe a lie
'Cause when I open my body, I breathe a lie

I will not speak of your sin
There was a way out for him
The mirror shows not
Your values are all shot

But oh, my heart was flawed
I knew my weakness
So hold my hand
Consign me not to darkness

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down
I'll never wear your broken crown
I took the road and I fucked it all the way
Now in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down
I'll never wear your broken crown
I took the road and I fucked it all the way
Now in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down
I'll never wear your broken crown

I can take the road and I can fuck it all the way
But in this twilight, our choices seal our fate

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Mumford & Sons' song "Broken Crown" explore themes of sin, temptation, and redemption. The first stanza speaks to the singer's resistance to being tempted into sin. The imagery of touching their mouth and holding their tongue suggests an attempt to resist speaking or participating in sinful actions. The singer acknowledges that they will never be the chosen one, but that it is better to be safely tucked away than to succumb to temptation. The second stanza explores the suffocating nature of temptation, which stifles the singer's ability to make a choice and breathe freely. The singer declares that it is better to not speak at all than to speak a lie. The third stanza takes a more accusatory tone, with the singer refusing to speak of another's sin and calling attention to the hypocrisy of those who judge others. The fourth and final stanza returns to the theme of personal responsibility and choice. The singer declares that they will never wear a broken crown, refusing to be associated with or led by those who have fallen. The singer acknowledges their past mistakes but also claims agency over their choices and their fate.

Line by Line Meaning

Touch my mouth
Engage with me

And hold my tongue
Keep me silent

I'll never be your chosen one
I'm not the one for you

I'll be home, safely tucked away
I'm safe where I am away from you

Well you can't tempt me if I don't see the day
I won't be tempted if I avoid you

The pull on my flesh was just too strong
I was weak in the face of your allure

It stifled the choice and the air in my lungs
Your grip held me back and suffocated me

Better not to breathe than to breathe a lie
I'd rather not breathe than be dishonest

'Cause when I open my body, I breathe a lie
I'm lying to myself when I give in to you

I will not speak of your sin
I won't talk about your wrongdoing

There was a way out for him
Someone had a chance to leave but didn't

The mirror shows not
What is reflected does not reveal the truth

Your values are all shot
Your principles are lacking

But oh, my heart was flawed
I had my own faults

I knew my weakness
I knew I was vulnerable

So hold my hand
Help me through this

Consign me not to darkness
Don't abandon me in my struggles

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down
I'll bear your mistreatment

I'll never wear your broken crown
I refuse to be your puppet

I took the road and I fucked it all the way
I chose my own path and messed it up

Now in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace
You can't preach to me in my moment of weakness

But in this twilight, our choices seal our fate
Our choices determine our destiny

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Marcus Oliver Johnstone Mumford, Edward James Milton Dwane, Benjamin Walter David Lovett, Winston Aubrey Aladar Marshall

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it

TRACKS