Rock & Roll And The BibleSample

Mumford & Sons Pack Passionate Lyrical Fare with Biblical Allusions

When Marcus Mumford and three friends from West London formed a folk-rock band in 2007, the music world had no idea that an acoustic phenomenon was about invade its tech-driven reality. Even more surprising was the band’s unique lyrical content that has since been known to embrace Mumford’s experiences growing up in “a biblical environment.”

From the get go, Mumford & Sons has infused overt Bible references along with many subtle allusions into its music. For instance, on the band’s debut album Sigh No More (2009), “Thistles & Weeds” pays allegorical homage to the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23) while “Roll Away Your Stone” similarly references the burial and resurrection of Jesus (Mark 15:42-47, 16:1-4).

“Awake My Soul” is especially ripe with biblical themes including the song’s bridge and chorus, which references passages from the Psalms, the Gospels, and a popular Pauline letter:

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die (2 Corinthians 5:1)

And where you invest your love, you invest your life (Matthew 6:21) 

 Awake my soul (Psalm 57:8)

For you were made to meet your maker (2 Corinthians 5:8)

On Mumford & Sons’ second album, Babel (2012), the title track provides yet another biblical allegory, this time based on the story of the earliest civilization’s attempt to build a tower to heaven (Genesis 11:1-9)

Like the city that nurtured my greed and my pride

I stretched my arms into the sky

I cry Babel! Babel! Look at me now

Then the walls of my town

They come crumbling down

Then, on the band’s third album, Wilder Mind (2015), “The Wolf” is ripe with biblical symbolism. The song title alone is akin to the numerous literal and figurative uses of the predacious animal within the Bible (e.g. Genesis 49:27, Jeremiah 5:6, etc.).

More specifically, in the first verse, Mumford & Sons invokes an epic exchanged between the Hebrew prophet Daniel and the Babylonian king Belshazzar, which comes from the infamous “writing on the wall” story. (Daniel 5)

Wide eyed, with a heart made full of fright

Your eyes follow like tracers in the night (vv. 5-6)

And the tightrope, that you wander every time

You have been weighed, you have been found wanting (v. 27)