Roll away your stone,
I’ll roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don’t leave me alone at this time
For I’m afraid of what I will discover inside
‘Cause you told me that
I wouldn’t find a home
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals
Darkness is a harsh term, don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see
It seems that all my bridges have been burned
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 every start
I’ve tried and tried but I just can’t bring myself to love “Mumford and Sons”. A lot of people who know my taste in music have recommended them to me and suggested that they are not like most pop bands: they are serious. Their music has substance. They have energy and passion.
The lyrics of “Roll Away Your Stone” (above) give you a pretty good idea of what they’re up to. I think I like what they’re trying to do– inject some substance into popular acoustic based folk-rock– but it always sounds to me a little too self-consciously artsy and definitely pretentious. “I’m afraid of what I’ll discover inside” isn’t very startling, really, and isn’t a very compelling evocation of self-searching or grief or guilt or anything. “Fragile substance of my soul”? “While my character it steals”? As the lines follow each other, they go nowhere. As the images succeed each other in your head you should realize that they don’t have any connection to each other. When exactly did this character-stealing happen? What were you doing at the time? Who were you thinking of? The answer is, “a song”, “a song”, and “a song”.
The answers, in a great song, is something like “one night after I kicked Rosie out my apartment”, “masturbating”, “Lisa”. Or something like “but her reply came from Anchorage”.
There is nothing in the lyrics of “Roll Away Your Stone” that suggests any particular real experience or feeling– just something that sounds like a serious consideration of something that sounds like seriousness.
Oddly– and I mean that– it’s fairly typical of their lyrics. Something that starts off with a generalized image of soulfulness but never really connects to any real idea.
It’s empty in the valley of your heart
The son it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears and all the faults you left behind
And “you forgave and I won’t forget”… what? What did she forgive? What did he do that was forgiven? What was forgotten? I don’t think they think it matters– I think they feel that the idea of forgiveness just floating out there is enough to move you. It doesn’t move me. It invites you to put your own experiences into that generalized statement but that makes it a weak song. You can get the same idea on poster from “Successories”.
Everything I’ve heard from them is weak in the same way. Vague and unspecific and generalized and rather antiseptic and platitudinous. Compare it to:
Did I disappoint you?
Leave a bad taste in your mouth? (U2)
The “bad taste in your mouth” is visceral and tart. Or:
I was down at the New Amsterdam
Starin’ at this yellow-haired girl
Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation
With a black-haired flamenco dancer (Counting Crows)
Specific place– the New Amsterdam–, specific girl– with yellow hair– and then you can go somewhere, the singer’s desperation for girls and success, his urge to throw himself at something and hope it sticks. Or…
There’s a note underneath your front door
That I wrote twenty years ago
Yellow paper and a faded picture
And a secret in an envelope
If Mumford and Sons rewrote the song, it would sound like this:
All your notes are under my doors
All my past thoughts expressed in words
I can hardly remember anything
Except my darkest secrets
So which is more evocative? More powerful? Is there any doubt? The Civil Wars song intrigued me immediately: what was the secret? Why couldn’t he give the message in person? What’s happened 20 years ago? You don’t need the answers to those questions to be drawn in to the sense of regret, missed opportunities, and sorrow.
And just to rub my nose in it, Mumford and Sons puts out a video of themselves performing at the Red Rock amphitheater in Colorado and the audience is just jumping! Just jumping! Waving their arms and mouthing the words and just so consummately rapt, in that choreographed fake “look at us whip the crowd into a frenzy” production style that I find more than a little distasteful.
You wonder where they are going with this. What’s the principle at work here– the crowd in a frenzy, interspersed with cuts of the band jumping and gyrating and demonstrating “passion” don’t you know, with the swooping camera work that is almost a sign of desperation: there is nothing on the stage that is interesting enough to obviate the need to make that camera move, to compel you to admit that there is something interesting here. This swooping camera! Why, a static camera just cannot capture the adoration of this bulging crowd of acolytes! Wait– there’s music.
Who’s more interesting than Mumford and Sons:
Bon Ivor
Dandy Warhols
Arcade Fire
Civil Wars
Ryan Adams
Brian Jonestown Massacre
Who’s less interesting:
Taylor Swift
Lady Gaga
Beyonce