[The following is an email that I actually wrote to a woman, after our first date, after she accused me of hating Mumford and Sons for no reason. The real reason I hated them was, well, I was on drugs at Sasquatch and just wanted to lay in the grass and stare at trees...but I had to GTFO from the nicest, most natural stage because fucking Mumford was about to play! Then I yelled "FUCK MUMFORD" at lots of people on my way to see Grimes. The end. But anyway, here's the email.]

Okay, so I actually love “hate-listening” to music. Every time there’s a new Limp Bizkit or Korn album, I’m sure to give it a spin or two. Once I had a contest with my lil’ bro to see who could listen to “Deer in the Headlights” by Owl City the most times in one week. So how am I gonna turn down an opportunity to listen to Mumford & Sons over and over on repeat at work?

So the music: really not so bad! The track Babel especially has a lot of things that I like in general, like all these crescendos. It’s pretty epic, which I don’t have a problem with. Dude’s voice is not bad either, and I kinda like its waveriness^[1] – reminds me of singers like Matthew Good who I actually like. That frail voice thing is more authentic, anyway. Also, yes I hate banjos, but they’re NOT EVEN THAT BAD in this context.

The first track actually gave me this feeling, like, “oh shit, maybe I misjudged them and I’m gonna have to eat crow”! Too bad I noticed the lyrics are super-religious and about lame shit, and you can’t un-notice that. I don’t even listen to lyrics generally – I mean, who can even understand metal singers? – but it’s hard to ignore all the grace and spirits and forgiveness happening in these songs.

The worst lyrics are definitely from Lover of the Light (which I knew I would hate anyway, since I love darkness):

But love the one you hold
And I will be your gold
To have and to hold

Marriage, UGH! Super-lame. Definitely not the only marriage / eternity related song (see also “I Will Wait”). Plus, this is double-HOLDing in a chorus, so I’m gonna have to pull a yellow card on the song. Hey, I’m just the ref, I don’t make the rules.

On about the 3rd listen though Babel, I noticed “hand”, “hold”, and “heart” a few songs in a row.^[2] I was getting ready to do some analysis and actually read through (i.e. Ctrl+F through ) all the Mumford lyrics. But I googled “mumford hand heart” and someone already did the analysis! Turns out, in Babel and Sigh No More’s 23 songs:

Pretty curious about the counts for “hold”, “love”, “life”. If I had like an hour more of free time at work, I’d make a word cloud of their lyrics. I’d use it as a reference guide for words NOT to use when I pretend I’m writing lyrics.

• 17 have the word “heart”
• 12 have the word “hand/s”
• 9 have the word “eyes”

Anyway, in conclusion, Mumford & Sons suck because of their terrible lyrics.