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.
Ditmas
Mumford & Sons Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
As one reminds the other of past
A life lived much too fast to hold onto
How am I losing you?
A broken house
Another dry month waiting for the rain
And I had been resisting this decay
But this is all I ever was
And this is all you came across those years ago
Now you go too far
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
And now I'm losing you
Fragile sound
The world outside just watches as we crawl
Crawl towards a life of fragile lines
And wasted time
And so I cry
As I hold you for the last time in this life
This life I tried so hard to give to you
What would you have me do?
But this is all I ever was
And this is all you came across those years ago
Now you go too far
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
And now I'm losing you
Where I used to end was where you start
You were the only one
And now I see your eyes move too fast
You were the only one
Careful hands
And wandering without that much to say
Your words are empty as the bed we made
Is there another way?
Oh love, is there another way?
But this is all I ever was
And this is all you came across those years ago
Now you go too far
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
And now I'm losing you
And now I'm losing you
The lyrics of Mumford & Sons's song Ditmas poignantly explore the theme of loss and heartbreak that comes with the end of a relationship. The opening lines set the tone for the rest of the song as they describe the pain and confusion that comes with the realization that a loved one is slipping away: "And in time, as one reminds the other of past, a life lived much too fast to hold onto, how am I losing you?" The singer reflects on the decay of their relationship and the resistance they had to acknowledging it, thinking that their partner continues to hold the same level of commitment: "Another dry month waiting for the rain, and I had been resisting this decay, I thought you'd do the same."
The refrain beautifully articulates the desperation and anguish of the singer as they plead with their partner, mourning the loss of their love: "But this is all I ever was, and this is all you came across those years ago, now you go too far, don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth, and now I'm losing you." The song culminates in a heart-wrenching moment where the singer holds their partner for the last time, reflecting on the life they tried to build together: "And so I cry, as I hold you for the last time in this life, this life I tried so hard to give to you, what would you have me do?"
Overall, Ditmas is a melancholic reflection on the pain of losing someone you loved deeply. The lyrics are beautifully written and convey the depth of emotion that comes with heartbreak.
Line by Line Meaning
And in time
As time goes by
As one reminds the other of past
As one person reminds the other of their shared past experiences
A life lived much too fast to hold onto
A life that went by too quickly and is hard to grasp onto
How am I losing you?
Expressing confusion over the loss of a loved one
A broken house
A home in disrepair that reflects a broken relationship
Another dry month waiting for the rain
A metaphor for waiting for something good to come in a time of drought
And I had been resisting this decay
Trying to hold onto something that is slowly falling apart
I thought you'd do the same
Assuming that the other person would also try to resist the decay
But this is all I ever was
Acknowledging that their past self was not enough
And this is all you came across those years ago
The person they love only saw one part of them from their past
Now you go too far
The person they love has changed too much and is now too far away
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
Defending themselves against accusations and claiming that they haven't changed
And now I'm losing you
Describing the sadness and pain of losing the person they love
Fragile sound
A metaphor for the relationship that is hanging on by a thread
The world outside just watches as we crawl
Feeling like they are being watched and judged by others as the relationship deteriorates
Crawl towards a life of fragile lines
Trying to move forward slowly and cautiously in a relationship that is on the brink of breaking
And wasted time
Regretting the time that was spent in the relationship that is no longer salvageable
And so I cry
Expressing the pain and sorrow of the situation
As I hold you for the last time in this life
Describing the bittersweet moment of holding onto someone for the last time
This life I tried so hard to give to you
Failing to give the other person a good life despite their best efforts
What would you have me do?
Asking the other person for guidance in what to do in the current situation
Where I used to end was where you start
Describing the way their strengths and weaknesses complemented each other in the past
You were the only one
Acknowledging that the person they love is irreplaceable
And now I see your eyes move too fast
Noticing a change in their loved one's behavior and how they're moving on too quickly
Careful hands
A metaphor for handling a delicate situation
And wandering without that much to say
Feeling lost and unsure of what to do or say
Your words are empty as the bed we made
Feeling like the intimacy that once existed in the relationship is now gone
Is there another way?
Asking if there is another solution or path forward in the relationship
Oh love, is there another way?
Asking the person they love for another plan or solution in the relationship
And now I'm losing you
Repeating the final line to emphasize the sadness and finality of the situation
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
@iseeisee7141
And in time
As one reminds the other of the past
A life lived much too fast to hold onto
How am I losing you?
A broken house
Another dry month waiting for the rain
And I had been resisting this decay
I thought you'd do the same
[Hook:]
But this is all I ever was
And this is all you came across those years ago
Now you go too far
Don't tell me that I've changed because that's not the truth
And now I'm losing you
[Verse 2:]
Fragile sound
The world outside just watches as we crawl
Crawl towards a life of fragile lines
And wasted time
And so I cry
As I hold you for the last time in this life
This life I tried so hard to give to you
What would you have me do?
[Hook]
[Bridge:]
Where I used to end was where you start
You were the only one
And now I see your eyes move too fast
You were the only one
[Verse 3:]
Careful hands
And wandering without that much to say
Your words are empty as the bed we made
Is there another way?
Oh love, is there another way?
[Hook]
And now I'm losing you
@laxplaya1346
Never losing faith in you guys. You'll be with me the rest of my life.
@Haaamoon
I feel you Bro, same for me
@utopia7067
Agree!! Amazing video !
@mel_nomato
Completly agreed! I just love this guys so fucking much!
@tomadams911
Agreed😝
@metalangel01
RT Geary I feel the same way.
@TheChrisHobsonProject
Banjo or no banjo, they're still Mumford & sons and they're still fucking awesome.
@catmom1322
I agree, but I do hope they make more music WITH the banjo. I love them either way:)
@DarkFrontier1
YES MATEEEEEEEEE
@Shaikat4U
i love without banjo more