If you are looking for a musical review of Mumford and Sons’ newest LP, Delta, look somewhere else. Mainstream critics can tell you how the orchestration is a little clunky and exceedingly safe for a band that seeks to continue selling out stadiums. They can tell you how there is some return to the folk origins of the band, but how the old acoustic sounds clash against big production and electronic elements.
However, the expertise of established critics apparently stops with the music because few reviews delve more deeply into the lyrics than to say that they are obscure to the point of being non-sensical. Some may have done their homework well enough to mention that the song ‘Darkness Visible’ contains text from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Some may even dip their toes into a little lyrical analysis of their own. But none have really considered the meaning of the lyrics and the thematic thrust of the album as a whole.
John J. Thompson’s review comes the closest to making sense of the album, the reason for which becomes exceedingly clear in a single quote:
Without biblical imagery, this collection of songs would completely fall apart. From the very first track it is clear that, while the music may be designed to appeal to the widest possible audience, the lyrics are attempting to dive deeply into the most mysterious and troubling questions about the nature of humanity.
What Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and the other big reviewers seem to miss, though they know as well as anyone, is the fact that Marcus Mumford is a PK (preacher’s kid) and much of Mumford’s music is tinted by a Christian worldview, regardless of Marcus’ ambivalence toward conventional religion. References to faith and doubt and frustration with God are riddled throughout the band’s lyrics, along with other artful literary references (John Steinbeck shows up big on Sigh No More with songs like ‘Timshel’ and ‘Dust Bowl Dance’). So, if you are going to try to approach any of the band’s lyrics, you ought to come with some literacy of your own. This is where mainstream critics keep bumping their toes against the subtlety and brilliance of Mumford and Sons.
Today’s review will consider the lyrics of Delta through a Christian lens, which will offer the fullest and most interesting ‘reading’ of the album possible.
Now let us be clear. All the songs on Delta are not specifically Christian songs about God. Mumford has never gone that far on any of the previous albums, and the latest is no exception. Delta is an exception, however, in that it frames the general lyrical thrust with particular focus on the biblical God. And as ideas, phrases, and words are used in back to back songs and throughout the album, we can feel confident that the individual songs are certainly meant to contribute to the album as a whole, a characteristic shared by some of the best albums ever written.
Delta is about love, faith, doubt, and inadequacy, but mostly love: romantic love, familial love, and yes, love for God and his love for man. The fractured and divergent story of love is the story of Delta.
The album opens with ‘42’, which could be a reference to “The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” as presented in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or (and I know this is a bit of a stretch) to the Biblical chapter, Isaiah 42. Perhaps the song refers to both. For although Mumford wrestles with the meaningless of life (in Hitchhiker, 42 is a non-sensical answer to the question of life), there is sufficient evidence in the band’s discography that its songs’ speakers do fear that God may provide the answers for which they are seeking, may provide the whole truth. Fearing that is the case, many of Mumford’s songs beg for some understanding, revelation, or feeling that might make God’s reality a bit more real on earth, for they fear the judgement that could be executed against their doubts.
Isaiah 42 speaks of God’s salvation coming as a guiding light to save his faithful people from the darkness and imprisonment of their world. The people’s songs of praise are to flow down from the mountains and through the deserts to cut across the coastlands as they join the sea at (what is not expressly nominated) the deltas. But not everyone is singing songs of praise for not all will be saved; the unfaithful oppressors of God’s people will be harshly judged for their disbelief. Likewise, in ‘42’ and ‘Guiding Light’, the songs’ speaker experiences the angst of feeling imprisoned in darkness with no liberated will or agency. But he doubts whether he will see God’s saving light. He wants to see a sign from God, he expects to see a sign from God (if there is a God), but he is afraid that he may be left in the dark because of the damning stain of his own evil. Is he one of the children of darkness, or will the guiding light of his youth reappear?
Just like the prophecies of the Old Testament, the songs on Delta shift speakers from lover to beloved, prophet to people, God to messiah to condemned. It is hard to keep track of who is speaking, and it seems, even in a single verse, that the speaker can change from one to another. ‘Guiding Light’ speaks from the desperation of one lost as well as from the confidence of a higher power. And finally, in the bridge, the speaker refers to “we” and “us,” as if he is now acting as a Moses-like intercessor, begging God to be forgiving and welcoming as his broken, unworthy, and ashamed people come for their final judgement, hoping for salvation.
But before we sell out completely to this reading of the lyrics, the other songs demand that we broaden our view. ‘Woman’, ‘Forever’, and ‘Rose of Sharon’ clearly speak to an earthly beloved, not unlike the poetry of the Song of Solomon. In fact, the first historical use of “rose of Sharon” comes from Song of Solomon 2:1, where the beloved refers to herself as such. Mumford is clearly aware of this and uses the literarily rich term to express more depth of meaning than they otherwise could.
Beyond romantic love, we also see love of a dying relative in ‘Beloved’. The old woman’s death is met with her own acceptance of a difficult faith by saying that “the Lord has a plan, but admits it’s pretty hard to understand.” The speaker wrestles with his own doubts contrasted against her faith by trying to make the most of their last moments together while not holding her back from the glory that she desires on the other side of her death.
‘The Wild’, which comes directly after ‘Beloved’, begins with the line “We saw birth and death.” This line acts as a bridge between the death of an elderly relative and the birth of a child. The song goes on to describe the beauty and majesty of human life. As a new father, Marcus Mumford can very genuinely write about the wild profundity of life and the anxieties he has for a new squalling child. He can whisper “do not be afraid” to his child while paradoxically remarking that the uncertainty of the life he is now responsible for “puts the fear of God in me.” Again and again, through all forms of love, we continually see the speaker of Delta reflect on how love is a divine experience, something that has the power to lift him up out of the apparent meaningless life, but something that is also terrifyingly profound.
‘October Skies’ recognizes the elusive nature of a skeptic’s faith and seems to be praying in words similar to an old hymn, “Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee.” He wishes for the good image of God to be imprinted on his mind so that even in the times when he is prone to doubt and live selfishly, he will still continually turn back to God.
In spite of this lingering hope that God might show up and maintain a continual presence in the speaker’s life, the latter half of the album seems to conflate love of God and romantic love. The speaker, throughout the album from beginning to end, confounds the love he feels for the mortals around him with the love that he thinks he should feel for a God who he is so unsure of. The speaker seems to think that if he cannot muster a genuine love for God, he should hedge his bets with a sincere love for those in his life. Truly, it is not a bad place to start, for as he says by the end of the album, “What have I, if I have not love? I am a waste. My words are empty vessels if I do nothing in this place.” He is referring to 1 Corinthians 13 where it is said that without love we are nothing. The speaker tries to live out the one commandment that he feels he can. Luckily for him, though he may lack faith and hope, the greatest of faith, hope, and love is love. Insomuch as he can muster hope in the face of faithlessness, he hopes that love will be enough.
Even so, he worries that by deifying earthly love he will find himself short of the divine benchmark of real love. This is shown in the juxtaposition of ‘Picture You’ and ‘If I Say’. ‘Picture You’ seems to speak to the deification of the speaker’s beloved; he tries to hold onto anything good and pure, though he knows something earthly will not be pure enough. The “silver and stone” of earth are just enough to temporarily distract the speaker from the tangible darkness of divine judgment. ‘Darkness Visible’ acts as a pivot away from this type of thinking, using the text of Paradise Lost to give a fairly graphic visual of God’s judgment. In ‘If I Say’, the speaker is confronted by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the guilt that he feels for not making more of the mercy and grace given to him by God.
As the album nears its end, ‘Wild Heart’ shows the capriciousness of human love and the pain that it can inflict. And in spite of the difficult truths faced, immediately in the next song, ‘Forever’, the speaker encourages his beloved to endure the difficulties of their relationship, the distance and pain that she sometimes feels, because his commitment will never fail. Whether or not the beloved is “pious” and whether or not the speaker is “saved,” he figures that some love is better than nothing. Perhaps it is.
Having come this far, the absolute crux of the entire album, the thematic climax, is definitely the title track, which comes to us as the last song on Delta.
In ‘Delta’, the speaker confronts the pain and uncertainty of our earthly lives while also recognizing the importance and responsibility to live and love well while we still have breath in our lungs. “We can scream into the shadows, and it’s good that we can,” is one way that he expresses the angst of the unknown. Whatever lies ahead, whether dust will just return to dust and there is nothing more in the ‘great beyond,’ Mumford and Sons know that they should be the ones to scream into the shadow. They will love, whether their love truly prefers the good of others or if it is ultimately self-serving.
Either way, the speaker wraps up the album by looking back, seeing the clearly delineated path of his past rolling down the hills in distinct curves of a river running to sea. But he also looks ahead at the future, death, God, the anxieties of a child’s life, and the great unknown. He sees nothing but open waters, undistinguished chaos, a formless void. Here he stands in the delta, a location and moment of transition, be it life, death, birth, salvation, or condemnation, and all he asks is that the one he loves stand by his side. He merely wants a little love to see him through to the other side. Is he asking his lover to stay near? Or is he talking to God? The album refuses to say definitively. We listeners must be content to rest in the love and hope that love alone might be enough.
Whether or not they will encounter the spirit they seek, rest assured that Mumford and Sons have once again put an earnest effort into writing a genuine album. Be thankful that we have artists willing to put themselves on the line like this.