I Gave You All
Mumford & Sons Lyrics

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Rip the earth in two with your mind
Seal the urge which ensues with brass wires
I never meant you any harm
But your tears feel warm as they fall on my forearms

But close my eyes for a while
Force from the world a patient smile

How can you say that your truth is better than ours?
Shoulder to shoulder, now brother, we carry no arms
The blind man sleeps in the doorway, his home
If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won

But I gave you all
I gave you all
I gave you all

Close my eyes for a while
Force from the world a patient smile

But I gave you all
I gave you all
I gave you all

And you rip it from my hands
And you swear it's all gone
And you rip out all I had
Just to say that you've won

And you rip it from my hands
And you swear it's all gone
And you rip out all I had
Just to say that you've won

Well now you've won
But I gave you all

I gave you all
I gave you all

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Mumford & Sons's song "I Gave You All" express a feeling of exhaustion and disappointment that results from unrequited love, betrayal, and heartbreak. The first verse couples an image of mental strength with a mechanical one, as if to suggest the narrator is both able to will their own emotions into submission and to bind and control temptation. The second line, “Seal the urge which ensues with brass wires,” conveys the frustration of the narrator’s emotions and his efforts to control them. Despite all attempts to keep his feelings under control, he is unable to remain indifferent to the person he loves.

The chorus is a repetition of the narrator giving himself wholeheartedly to this person he fell in love with. Despite being hurt, he still gave them everything he had. The bridge expresses an envious wish for enemies who are bigger than his apathy. It implies that if the narrator's emotional blocks were prodigious enemies, he would be able and willing to fight them and overcome them. Similarly, the next two lines express that brotherhood and unity only exist when arms are laid down, and compassion is the only winner.

In summary, the song’s lyrics express the painful aftermath of a broken relationship: the narrator's futile attempt to keep his emotions in check; his failure to overcome the apathy and stagnation that this relationship has inflicted on him. In the end, the narrator expresses his disappointment, disillusionment, and despair, even though he had given his all.

Line by Line Meaning

Rip the earth in two with your mind
You have the power to cause destruction without needing physical force

Seal the urge which ensues with brass wires
Suppress the desire that comes after fear to avoid dealing with it later

I never meant you any harm
I never intended to cause harm to you

But your tears feel warm as they fall on my forearms
Your emotional pain affects me emotionally as well

But close my eyes for a while
I need to take a break from the world for some time

Force from the world a patient smile
Hide my own pain and struggle by smiling patiently

How can you say that your truth is better than ours?
Why do you think that your beliefs or opinions are better than everyone else's?

Shoulder to shoulder, now brother, we carry no arms
We can stand together peacefully without needing weapons or violence

The blind man sleeps in the doorway, his home
A man who is blind and homeless finds shelter in a doorway

If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won
If my lack of enthusiasm or indifference had an opposing force I could overcome it

But I gave you all
I gave you everything I had to offer

And you rip it from my hands
You take away what I gave to you

And you swear it's all gone
You claim that everything I gave you is now lost or destroyed

And you rip out all I had
You forcefully take everything I had to give

Just to say that you've won
You only do this to prove that you have defeated me

Well now you've won
You have achieved what you wanted to accomplish

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: BENJAMIN WALTER DAVID LOVETT, EDWARD JAMES MILTON DWANE, MARCUS OLIVER JOHNSTONE MUMFORD, WINSTON AUBREY ALADAR MARSHALL

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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 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.