Mumford And Sons "Little Lion Man"

I remember hearing David Letterman talk about some city that he had only limited experience with. Maybe it was Cleveland. For the sake of the larger point, let's just say, Cleveland.

He was asking his guest about their home town, Cleveland, and he prefaced the question by saying that the only time he'd ever been to Cleveland, was as part of a flight with a lay-over, and for the hour or so he was there, the skies were very overcast.

Now, whenever he thought about Cleveland, he pictured it as a grey, overcast place. Of course, he knew that Cleveland isn't always grey and miserable, but that's what he saw in his head, because that was the full breadth of his experience.

If you only have one experience with something, it can lead you to extrapolate, incorrectly.

Back in the summer of 2010, we got a copy of the Mumford And Sons single "Little Lion Man." I hadn't really heard anything about them, other than they were gaining popularity and commercial radio was starting to pay attention to them.

I listened to the track a bunch of times, but we didn't have a full length record to check out, so my experience with Mumford And Sons started and ended with this track.

Okay, if they were an "It" band, that released a Rockin' track that drops and F-bomb in the chorus, well, I don't know. Good song. But is this just another generic "We rock" rock band that churns out generic rock songs that generic radio stations play so that non-discriminating rock fans can chant inane, "edgy" choruses while they drive to the office? I don't think I need to go out of my way to play that song . . .

I kept hearing about Mumford And Sons, and when the label sent out a second single, at the end of 2010, I listened. And listened. And listened again. And I pulled out the album.

These were not generic rock tracks. Hell, they weren't really rock tracks at all. Rockin' for sure. But Mumford And Sons was more about taking Folk in new directions. Songs featured the banjo for f's sake!

When I only knew "Little Lion Man," I was only able to imagine the album at 12 tracks just like that. I extrapolated, incorrectly.

I loved the second single, "The Cave." And the third single, "Roll Away Your Stone." And the full album. And when I heard the acoustic version of "Little Lion Man" I loved that.

And it turns out, the mvyradio listeners did too.

A record that we nearly passed over, turned out to be our #2 album of 2011.

Cleveland Rocks!


Hear the original version on Youtube.


Hear the acoustic version on Youtube.

Laura Marling "Roll Away Your Stone"

I have to admit, that even though today is the last day of voting for mvyradio's Top 25 Of 2011 . . . um, I haven't come up with my list yet.

Hey, I have until 5pm!

Off the top of my head though, two major favorites have been Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling. So how excited was I to find this version of Marling covering Mumford?!?

I hope you have a chance to vote today. We'll count down the winners on the week between Christmas and New Years.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Mumford & Sons "Roll Away Your Stone"

There are a couple of musical things that we have been adamant about, as parents.

One, is crummy kid music.

Perhaps surprisingly, it's my wife that has zero patience for twee tunes. With the exception of a Sesame Street album, we really don't play any music for our kids, that was created for kids alone.

Instead we've worked really hard to find music that was made for adults, that appeals to kids.

The Beatles is kid music. Abba is kid music. Michael Franti is kid music.

The other thing we have strongly encouraged is unselfconscious dancing. And that's because my wife is a great dancer, and because I am a terrible dancer. We want our kids to experience the joy of movement.

I lost that joy somewhere along the way.

When I was a little kid, my sister and I used to dance around the living room. The kid songs we had, were Showtunes. We'd jump and groove to "The Music Man" and "Fiddler On The Roof" and such. We'd swing with wild abandon, until . . . well, I'll get back to that in a second.

My wife and I have tried to recreate that scene in our living room, and we were having a blast recently, with Mumford & Sons.

I can't really say that lyrically, Mumford & Sons is kid music. But musically? Hell yeah.

I was holding my daughter, and my wife was holding my sons, and we started shuffling to "Roll Away Your Stone," sashaying from one end of the living room to the other.

Then that instrumental part, right after the chorus, hit. The part that makes you want to stamp your feet. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

And that's what we did. We stomped our feet. Stomped from one end of the room to the other.

As the song built, so did out stomping.

STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP.

Where I had been charging into the rhythm with abandon, I suddenly had a hesitation, and I stopped.

I stopped stomping. I stopped jumping.

Why?

I smiled when I realized what had made me want to stop:

I didn't want the record player to skip.

Back in the 1970s, when my sister and I were stomping along to "76 Trombones" like we were in a Sousa marching band, there was a point where you had to pull in the reins of your unrestrained thumps.

If you thumped too hard, the needle would jump off the record. Why, you could get bounced right back into "Goodnight My Someone" if you weren't careful.

So you had to tread lightly, pull back the reins, not dance with full abandon, in deference to the limitations of the phonograph player.

I can't say that this is solely the reason that I grew up to be a terrible dancer. But it was a pretty startling realization.

In the living room, with my daughter in my arms, I realized no matter how hard I stomped, that Mumford & Sons MP3 was not going to skip.

There was nothing holding me back.


See the video on Youtube.