What music takes you back to your middle school / high school years? Whether it was punk rock, hip hop, or even (horror of horrors!) the soundtrack to High School Musical, we all carry soundtracks of the past with us. Some songs fill us with nostalgia, reminding us of bright memories and the adventure of growing up. Other songs awaken a familiar ache, because at one time they gave voice to the angst, hurt, love, and longing that came with being a teenager. My teenage soundtrack was largely composed by one band: a British folk rock group called Mumford & Sons.
Chances are, you’re familiar with several of their songs. Made up of banjo player Winston Marshall, keyboardist Ben Lovett, bassist Ted Dwayne, and lead vocalist Marcus Mumford, this band exploded onto the music scene in the United States and the U.K. following the release of their debut album, Sigh No More. While folk music had been making a resurgence for quite some time, Mumford & Sons sailed into uncharted waters by melding traditional folk sounds with stadium rock. While some people saw them as impostors – modern rockers naively trying to rip off a past era – their rousing acoustic tunes struck a chord with a new generation, who were searching for something earthy and authentic in an increasingly commercialized music scene. Traditional or not, the music was raw and heartfelt.
As a teenager who was wrestling with some deep insecurities, questioning the faith that I’d been raised in, and yearning for acceptance from a community, I resonated with the things that Mumford & Sons were singing about. I loved Marcus Mumford’s rough, gravelly vocals, the driving beats and aggressive guitar-strumming that made you want to dance and shout along, and the lyrics that grappled honestly with familiar struggles – heartache, failure, doubt, and a longing for something different. Something lasting and beautiful and real. After all these years, the music still brings me back to that place.
If you haven’t checked their music out yet, Sigh No More is the place to start. I love albums that have to be listened to as a whole – records that invite you on a journey towards a final destination, where each song has an important place in the overarching narrative. While I have no idea if Mumford & Sons intended it, and while you could land on a totally different interpretation, there seems to be a distinct progression in the songs – a journey from a place of light through deep darkness and into a new, weightier light. Like many of the lament psalms in the Bible, there is movement from a place of confidence (orientation) to a place of disillusionment (disorientation) to a place of deeper understanding and hope (re-orientation). Though none of the band’s members would identify as Christians, the story that their songs tell is a profoundly spiritual one, with beautiful echoes of the great story of redemption that Christians call “the gospel.” More than just entertainment, this is music that asks tough questions about the stuff of our everyday lives, challenging us to re-examine our personal stories. It’s a search for what matters, and we are invited to join the search.
Orientation
The album’s opener, “Sigh No More,” kicks off with a quote from William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing: “Serve God, love me, and mend.” Here at the start, love is something lasting and liberating, and there’s a sense of purpose which comes from the belief that human beings and their relationships were created for something:
Love, it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
After this comes another hope-filled anthem, “The Cave,” a song about supporting someone who is walking through suffering. Once again, there is a sense of purpose which waits to be discovered: “‘Cause I need freedom now / And I need to know how / To live my life as its meant to be.” There’s also an acknowledgement of a Creator who has given order to things: “You can understand dependence when you know the maker’s land.”
The third song on the record, “Winter Winds,” tells the story of a romance that is both joy-filled and difficult. Here, for the first time, there is distance between the songwriter and the beliefs that formerly sustained him, distance within a relationship, and a much more dismal outlook on the road ahead:
The shame that sent me off from the God that I once loved
Was the same that sent me into your arms
And pestilence has won when you are lost and I am gone
And no hope, no hope will overcome
However, the song ends with a confident assertion that things will get better someday:
But if your strife strikes at your sleep
Remember spring swaps snow for leaves
You’ll be happy and wholesome again
When the city clears and sun ascends.
Disorientation
In the fourth track, “Roll Away Your Stone,” the songwriter begins to wrestle with his own demons. He’s gone looking for things that might satisfy and has come up empty. He’s scared of what he sees within himself, and recognizes that his choices have affected his perception of the world: “Darkness is a harsh term, don’t you think? / And yet it dominates the things I see.” Following these reflections, he offers one of the most beautiful summaries of the gospel that I’ve ever come across:
It seems that all my bridges have been burnt
But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with the restart
Despite this recognition of the transformative power of grace, the song ends with a cryptic accusation, followed by the songwriter’s refusal to surrender his soul to someone. The listener is left wondering whether the singer is pushing back against the darkness that he has already described, or whether he is resisting the offer of grace and choosing to go his own way, regardless of the consequences.
Next comes “White Blank Page.” From here on, the music becomes noticeably darker and more somber. The songwriter has been rejected by someone he loves, and he vents his anger and sorrow. He doesn’t have answers anymore, and in his despair, he cries out to God for guidance: “Lead me to the truth and I / Will follow you with my whole life.” Track 6, “I Gave You All,” depicts another broken relationship. The song contains multiple references to Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, in which, after losing his grip on reality, an elderly monarch begins to lose all that is precious to him. Like the play, this song explores themes of truth and falsehood, sight and blindness.
By the time we get to track 7, “Little Lion Man,” the songwriter has hit rock bottom. Standing in the rubble of a shattered relationship, he acknowledges that he has wounded someone deeply, and admits his inability to fix the mess: “But it was not your fault but mine / It was your heart on the line / I really f—ed it up this time / Didn’t I, my dear?” Here, hope of restoration is absent. As gritty and painful as the song is, I am moved every time I hear the quiet change of rhythm and the beautiful harmonies before the final chorus. In the midst of such a raw confession, there’s a soft note of grace in the music itself.
Two more songs round out the middle section of the record. In “Timshel,” a song which draws inspiration from John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, the members of the band speak to someone who is confronting an imminent death. They offer assurance and comfort, promising to stay with the person through the struggle. Yet, once again, there’s a painful acknowledgment, this time that the songwriter can’t change his friend’s situation: “I can’t move the mountains for you.” In “Thistle and Weeds,” the singer describes the toll that greed and other corrupting influences have had on a relationship. He depicts the world as a place hostile to love – “The sky above us shoots to kill” – and urges his lover to avoid temptations that would continue to hurt her – “Plant your hope with good seeds / Don’t cover yourself with thistle and weeds.” This imagery is drawn from Jesus’ parable of the sower, which is told in the Gospel of Matthew.
Re-Orientation
Like “Sigh No More,” “Awake My Soul” begins with a confession. However, while the earlier song excused faults with a Shakespearean line about humanity’s folly – “Man is a giddy thing” – in this track, the songwriter confronts his failures head-on:
How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes
I struggle to find any truth in your lies
And now my heart stumbles on things I don’t know
My weakness I feel I must finally show
After acknowledging his weakness, confusion, and self-deception, the songwriter turns his gaze upward. Once more, there’s a statement of belief in a higher purpose:
Awake, my soul
For you were made to meet your maker
Compared to the songs before it, “Awake My Soul” is bright and upbeat, a decisive turn towards hope. After coming to the end of himself, the songwriter has begun to look beyond himself for direction. This track is followed by “Dust Bowl Dance,” which tells the tale of a young man who has committed a crime in the dust bowl region of America during the Great Depression. Rather than hiding the deed, the man admits his guilt and is resolved to accept the consequences.
The final song on the album, “After the Storm,” brings together the threads woven throughout the record. The singer has walked through heartbreak and come to terms with his own shortcomings. He recognizes his need for help – “On my knees and out of luck, I look up” – and returns to the truths that have sustained him in the past – “Now I cling to what I knew.” With striking honesty, he shares his continuing doubts, his regret regarding past mistakes, and his fear of death. He cannot feel at home in a world that has beat him down again and again. But then comes the chorus, a breathtakingly beautiful vision of a coming redemption. The lyrics echo Revelation 21:3-4 (“God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes”) and 1 John 4:18 (“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”), offering a vision of love restored and hope that has been tempered by hardship:
But there will come a time, you’ll see
With no more tears
And love will not break your heart
But dismiss your fears
Get over your hill and see what you find there
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair
Conclusion
Altogether, Sigh No More is a musical masterpiece and a deeply insightful exploration of love, loss, and longing. In their rough, honest way, Mumford & Sons have pushed me to ask questions about my beliefs and to seek answers that face up to the difficulties of life. While I still have many questions, I’ve found peace, hope, and guidance in a narrative that extends beyond my own – the great Story of what God did to forgive sinners, overcome evil, and put things right again through his Son, Jesus Christ. Mumford & Sons have picked up the trail of truths in this tale: the fact that human love was designed by God, the recognition that healing begins with a painful acknowledgement of our mistakes, the need to accept our mortality, and the assurance that there is a deeper purpose behind our individual stories. I hope they stay on the trail and keep following where it leads. With the journey comes a promise: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
Words for Wayfarers 