With Mumford and Sons set to release their first new album in over four years this March, it is perhaps worth revisiting front man Marcus Mumford’s 2022 solo release (self-titled) as we look forward to new music from the band that first caught fire nearly 15 years ago with their debut Sigh No More.
When (self-titled) was released in September of 2022, it was met with critical and popular expectation. Mumford and Sons has always demanded an outsized portion of the international consciousness; filling stadiums, radio airwaves, and a broad array of streaming services. As the band’s lead, Marcus’ solo work likewise would attract plenty of attention. Interviews with the artist and reviews of his work followed, all the more fascinating due to the revelation that Mumford was sexually abused as a child and that the album was a gracious outworking of his post-traumatic healing.
Still, those reviews lacked what reviews of albums tend to lack. It is rare to find publications posting reviews of music that delve deeply into the lyrics. Many will give more attention to the musical character and instrumentation. Most will touch on general lyrical themes. Few waste many words in an attempt to pull out the real meaning in the lyrics, from a more literary perspective.
Even so, the articles and video interviews that came following the release of (self-titled) could hardly escape the lyrics. This is an album that commands a serious response and a closer reading. Much of the meaning is clear. And much of that meaning is couched within biblical allusion, so much that it cannot be avoided. Mumford’s Christian background must be addressed.
The Guardian’s review spent a few paragraphs discussing how Mumford & Sons ruffled the feathers of secular critics with their unabashed classical and biblical references and how Marcus is now happy to talk about it. Focus on the Family’s Plugged In rightly called attention to the biblical imagery used in the album’s search for forgiveness. The Washington Institute and the Irish Examiner went so far as to suggest that Mumford’s therapeutic approach to forgiveness is characteristically Christian, just about the closest any review comes to engaging the album on its own terms.
Then again, even if the critics are willing to admit the Christian character of the lyrics, they are not all willing to let Mumford say something positive on his own terms. Our Culture magazine expressed how unimpressive the recursive nature of Mumford’s process is by saying it is “underwhelming in its repetitiveness.” The Independent had the gall to go so far as saying that Mumford’s forgiveness is “dubious.” The Christian motivations behind the lyrics are unpalatable, perhaps wholly unintelligible, to the secular world.
But if the broader culture and the critics writing for it are unwilling to engage with the lyrics on the lyrics’ terms, so too seems Marcus Mumford. In conversation with NPR, he demurs in discussing the impulses behind the song ‘Stonecatcher’ by only mentioning the fact that it is largely informed by Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Most assuredly, it is, evinced by the fact that Stevenson himself plays piano on the track. Still, to neglect the title and the “lines in the sand” that find their way into multiple songs (clearly referencing John 8:3-11), is to willfully ignore the substance of what the song means.
So what gives? Why all the hesitation to properly engage with the Biblical themes?
Marcus Mumford must be at least partially responsible.
Unlike a young band like The Red Clay Strays, who have been propelled into a broad cultural popularity with unabashedly faithful Christian lyrics, Mumford and Sons have always had a much subtler, nuanced, indirect approach to topics of faith. NPR can claim that Brandon Coleman generally finds “solace in a higher power,” but anyone with a passing understanding of Christianity knows that The Stray’s lyrics are addressing Jesus as Lord. Mumford and Sons have never come close to those kinds of declarations. Has Marcus’ band sung about faith and specifically Christian faith? Undoubtedly, yes. But they have always approached the topic sideways, always giving their audience some breathing room in case Jesus is a little too suffocating a figure.
That said, Marcus Mumford thinks Jesus is dope. If such an admission is not permission to engage (self-titled)’s lyrics fully, we have no hope of truly understanding the album.
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Mumford has said that the tracklist is chronological, so let’s take (self-titled) song by song.
When it was released, ‘Cannibal’ was a remarkable public admission. Marcus Mumford was sexually abused as a child, and all of (self-titled) is about that fact and the fallout that Mumford has had to deal with for nearly his entire life. Almost every other review will give you more detail on that, as much as Marcus has ever said publicly, which is not much but enough. The biographical facts are less important here than engaging the lyrics and the album as a self-contained whole. And so, all we need to know about ‘Cannibal’ is that it starts the album off with a man looking back on the abuse he suffered as a child.
Whether or not someone has, I cannot believe that I have not seen any reviewer mention that (self-titled)’s use of “cannibal” is not Mumford’s first. The first time we hear the term in his discography is in ‘The Cave’ on Sigh No More. That song is about redemption, about refusing to pull tight the noose that is on someone else’s neck, about leaving the pain someone has imposed on us behind. ‘The Cave’ alludes to G. K. Chesterton’s description of Christian conversion, after which a convert sees the world entirely differently. Marcus Mumford may have begun airing his trauma 15 years ago on his band’s first album, showing how faith in Jesus was integral to his healing.
‘Cannibal’ is the beginning of the album, and though it expresses truths that Mumford knows will be necessary for his own healing, it is only the beginning of the process:
If I could forgive you now
Release you from all of the blame I know how
If I could forgive you now as if saying the words will help me know how
To begin again
Help me know how to begin
The album takes the next step with ‘Grace’, one of multiple instances in which Mumford engages a loved one in his healing process. Interviews with the artist suggest the counterpart in this song is his mother, but it just as well could be his wife or anyone else close to him. Regardless of who, this individual extends understanding and grace so that Marcus can tell all (all he is able to) with nothing but acceptance. Her grace is “like a river,” a phrase so thoroughly ingrained into the Christian psyche by Horatio Spafford’s ‘It Is Well with My Soul’.
‘Prior Warning’ extends this theme; however, here Marcus is concerned about wearing down the patience, understanding, and grace that was extended. If ‘Grace’ was likely sung to his mother, Mumford seems to be singing ‘Prior Warning’ to his wife, Carey Mulligan who at least shares a basic understanding of Mumford’s Christian ethos. But based on the lyrics, the second individual here is quite likely deeply embodying Christ-likeness, not only passingly familiar. While Marcus is concerned that he is turning into the perpetrator of abuse, she cuts through with mercy:
Each word is a cut that I see coming
I clench my fists as I'm inflicting them
And now I'm running out of parts that I can play
Not the hero, not the dodger, not the preacher's son
You ask me why I'd wanna break the very thing I love thе most
You knew I couldn't answer plainly
Then you knеlt down on the ground like you were drawing in the sand
And I surrender, I surrender now
Mumford is left astounded, intoning over and over again, “How could you not blame me?” These words are visceral. They are pulled out of a broken man by the unimaginable love of another.
‘Better Off High’ moves on to discuss the coping mechanisms that can quiet the effects of trauma for a time, but always at a cost. Temporary peace is possible, but its source is diabolical: “some hell [has] put a peace on me… the silence turns up the curse in me.”
The substance abuse used for coping (or maybe just some character flaws) end up causing Mumford to act like an ‘Only Child.’ He is concerned that his selfish behavior is causing his wife to “regret the bed we made.” In spite of all of his professional successes, acting like a child in his personal life leaves him with “nothing to show.” This is still a broken man, but he is a broken man who is facing up to his faults, knowing that many of those faults are the effects of the abuse that he suffered, knowing that the neglect and abuse he doles out are his responsibility nonetheless.
‘Dangerous Game’ sees Mumford engage in serious therapy. The therapist encourages Mumford to mentally return to the day of his childhood abuse, confronting the event and his abuser in order to process his trauma. This is a painful experience and could backfire. Mumford has already recognized on the first track “that there’s some sick part of it that thrills me; that my own body keeps betraying me.” Knowing what has become a sort of common sense, that sufferers of abuse often become abusers themselves, Mumford later recognizes that it “coulda just as well been me.” Though returning to his experience is an important step in his healing, it is truly a dangerous game, not to be engaged without professional support.
Having worked through therapy, Mumford continues the long and arduous journey of healing from his trauma. On ‘Better Angels,’ he continues carrying the past with him, though it is beginning to fade. He sees the angels leading him forward but knows just as well that he may still try to deceive them and give them the slip. Even so, light is breaking through.
In ‘Go In Light,’ Mumford keeps working through the process; it is imperfect. We hear again his dependence on alcohol as a coping mechanism and its deleterious effects on his health and relationships. He can imagine something better. We imagine he is working toward something better. But the backsliding is real and the process is only haltingly moving toward wholeness.
The light follows Mumford into the next, penultimate, and most thematically rich track. ‘Stonecatcher’ returns to a striking visual motif that is repeated on the album, that of the light that was filtered through maple leaves in the garden in which Mumford suffered his abuse. This light is “neon:” it “burns and burns, but leaves no warmth behind.” Even after confronting his abuse and abuser in therapy, the wound is a grievous scar with an ache that fades but never is fully healed; similarly to how Frodo was cut by evil in The Fellowship of the Ring, Mumford will carry his wound with him always.
As the memories return, he cries out, “Oh, my God!” But on the other side of all the work he has done, “it all slows down to lines in the sand.” Marcus Mumford works diligently to incorporate himself into the story of one of Jesus’ most radical and culture-shifting acts of mercy. He sees himself both as the perpetrator and the potential forgiver of a terrible sin, utterly humbled by the weight of the glory that Jesus offers his audience:
Coulda just as well been me
Brought before them head down in that midday heat
Only defined by my most heinous deed
Well, who would trace a finger through the dust?
Mumford subscribes to Jesus’ radically just mercy and by his savior’s example will throw no stones. Still more, as a sufferer of abuse, both in his past and potentially as a result of his Christian stance, he is willing to be stoned instead of perpetuating evil. He will be a stonecatcher. The lines in the sand reveal that he is on the side of forgiveness, mercy, and grace.
And now that he is on this side of redemption and healing, Mumford is able to look on his abuser with unimaginable charity. As the last song ‘How’ begins, he wonders what was done to his abuser that would begin or perpetuate a cycle of abuse. Marcus wishes that his abuser’s memories are less vivid and painful than his own. Marcus has reckoned with what he lost as a child and will not let it fester in his soul, nor will he impose the deserved judgment back on the perpetrator. He has come to the inevitability of Christian faith, toward which the first song directed us, repeating words and phrases from ‘Cannibal.’
Mumford does not seek to take vengeance into his own hand, knowing that if it is anyone’s responsibility, it belongs to the Lord. Instead he desires to embody Nehemiah, begging simply to return to shalom, from which he was exiled as a child. He needs to rebuild and protect his own (Neh. 2:1-8). And though whatever he is able to construct from the rubble may be something worthy of weeping (Ez 3:12), he holds onto a promise for something unimaginably blessed (Zech. 8:4-5).
Can Marcus Mumford do this? No. Certainly not in his own power. The preceding songs all testify against his goodness, strength, and independence. He hardly knows how to begin, even having come so far.
This is the human condition. This is the plight of the abused abuser. This is Israel: striving with YHWH. This is original sin.
But we are commanded by a good God to be perfect as he is perfect. And we are promised that sanctification is possible. Further, we are comforted by the sufficiency of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We are called to begin. And Marcus Mumford gives us a beautiful example of what trying to follow Christ’s example might look like.
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Has this gone too far? Perhaps I have said more than Mumford’s songs say. Is it too much to bring the thrust of these lyrics to so fine a point?
Maybe. But if this review has gone too far, it is easy to see how past reviews have not nearly gone far enough. In Dominion, Tom Holland tells us that our culture has been entirely blinded to its debt to the Christian revolution. Even the pagans love those who love them (Matt. 5:46-47). But to positively forgive an abuser, to bless those who persecute you, to pray for those who mistreat you: this is not of the world, nor does it belong to secular therapy.
Mumford’s message is Christ! Let us not be shy to proclaim it!
By Stefan Schäfer, Lich - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link