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.
Sister
Mumford & Sons Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And by God it'll make you fall
If you let it take a part of your soul
I see the love in your brother's eyes
And the love in your mother's cries
Sister don't test the ones you love
Sister don't let go of us
[x2]
Cause your roots will rot away
And your fruit, it wont grow
Your bark will wear thin, body hollow
I see the love in your brother's eyes
And the love in your mother's cries
Sister don't test the ones you love
Sister don't let go
Sister don't let go of us
[x4]
Don't test the ones you love
It'll only tear us down
If you want to feel alive
Then learn to love your ground
[x2]
Love your ground
Sister don't let go
Sister don't let go of us
[x4]
The song "Sister" by Mumford & Sons speaks about the unconditional love and support that siblings and family members can provide in a person's life. The lyrics specifically address a sister who seems to be carrying a chip on her shoulder, warning her that it could cause her to fall if she lets it take a part of her soul. The singer sees the love in the brother's eyes and the mother's cries which signify the deep love and care they have for her sister. The chorus repeats the plea to the sister not to let go of them and not to test the ones she loves because it will only wear her down and rot her roots.
The song encourages the sister not to test the ones she loves because if she does, it will tear them down. Instead, they advise her to love her ground and all that she has. The song’s final message is that love is the most important ingredient of life and one should focus on it rather than on the negativity.
Line by Line Meaning
There's a chip on your shoulder, girl
You are carrying a weight on your shoulders.
And by God it'll make you fall
If you don't release that burden, it will be your downfall.
If you let it take a part of your soul
That weight will slowly take a piece of your soul and consume you.
I see the love in your brother's eyes
Your brother has love for you in his eyes.
And the love in your mother's cries
Your mother loves you deeply and is concerned about you.
Sister don't test the ones you love
Don't push away the people who love you, don't take their love for granted.
Sister don't let go
Don't let go of the people who love you, don't close yourself off from love.
Cause your roots will rot away
If you neglect the things that ground you, you will lose your sense of self and direction in life.
And your fruit, it wont grow
You cannot grow and prosper without proper nurturing and care for yourself and your surroundings.
Your bark will wear thin, body hollow
If you continue to neglect your roots and your sense of self, you will become fragile and hollow inside.
Don't test the ones you love
Don't push away the people who love you, don't take their love for granted.
It'll only tear us down
Pushing away love will only cause harm and destruction to yourself and those around you.
If you want to feel alive
If you want to truly live and experience joy and fulfillment.
Then learn to love your ground
You must learn to appreciate and care for the things that ground you and give you a sense of purpose and direction in life.
Sister don't let go
Don't let go of the people who love you, don't close yourself off from love.
Sister don't let go of us
Don't let go of the people who love you and care about you, don't push them away.
Contributed by Skyler T. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@osmanthuswine4092
For a few years now I often get suicidal thoughts and think I should end it all, and for a long time the only thing stopping me is the love I know my brothers and parents have for me and knowing that if I ever left them they would be devastated. But it's hard when two of my dearest friends are struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts for years and I'm scared of them leaving before I do, while I know that the other one is panically afraid of something bad happening to anyone she loves and when I know that my parents would want me to like boys, find a husband and raise a bunch of kids with him when it's the last thing I want to do and I'm scared of telling them that, so now I just can't imagine a future in which I am happily living as a functioning human being with someone I love by my side.
So to my parents, who are there for me even though I don't share with them how bad it really gets - thank you so much for your love, for everything you gave me even though we don't always agree and share the same views.
To my brothers - you don't know how amazing, smart and beautiful you are. I would give my life to you and I know you would protect me from everything bad in this world if you could.
To my friends and to that one girl I adore - it's going to be alright, and I'll be there for you for as long as I can. You deserve love more than you think you do and there are people who care for you so much, please allow yourself to be loved.
And to those who feel like I do - make sure to forgive yourself for not being alright when you feel like you should, understand that not everything is your own fault and it's normal to make mistakes or to not be sure whether you've done right or wrong. Allow yourself to be human and feel bad even when everything seems to be ok, allow yourself to look for help when you need it, allow yourself and accept that you are not capable of meeting everyone's expectations and it's ok, and allow yourself to accept the way you are so you can move on and change yourself for better if you want to.
@Syphian
My sister passed away nearly a year ago and this was the song I used to play for her. rest in peace Christine, I will love you forever. xx
@kadebrown4017
I’m sorry for your loss and I hope you haven’t forgotten about this song.
@charlottewinchester9069
This song saved my life, literally. They were dark times but I'm out on top now and smiling. I love Mumford and sons <3
@jenniferstacey10
Did mine too... I saw them live and they came to front area to sing ..
@MuckingFuffins
Mumford and Sons live is THE definition of utter, pure, and tranquil bliss. You'd never think you could be so high from the passionate harmony these four legends spew.
@smeesquatch
They sang this when I went to see them in concert - no instruments, just them harmonizing. The entire stadium of about 21, 000 people was silent in awe throughout the entire song. It was so gorgeous and chilling, only M&S could do something like that.
@deedop90
I wanted to share my own story about M&S, perhaps to some of you who believe they aren't the greatest band on the face of the Earth. When I was 15, my family was going through some pretty rough times: my father and mother had gone through a nasty divorce and sadly-enough, my father had slumped into his old drinking habits again. I was suffering from teenage depression, the kind society forces onto you... I was listening to some screamo song about death and decay and how we're all damned, crazy shit like that. Then I saw this song, right on the side of the suggestions bar. Curious and intrigued, I clicked on it and what I heard was not music, but a gift from God himself. I listened to Sister crying, understanding, and accepting that I was never alone. My family was still by my side and I could do this. M&S has saved my life and it continually does, time after time. :)
@georgedehayen
🐲deedop90
@fodorkisshunor
same here
@bethgarner5329
Tears from your post. Just... YES!!!