Wednesday, July 28, 2010

THE TOP 50 SONGS OF 2010 (So Far) - The Number 1

1
The Cave - MUMFORD AND SONS








From the first mellow acoustic guitar sound heard on title track Sigh No More followed by the haunting Fleet Foxes style harmonies, you know that Mumford and Sons have you wrapped into their world of love, heartache and emotion.

This tale of hope and defiance is a reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave in which the Greek philosopher argued that the invisible world is the most intelligible and that the visible world is the least knowable, and therefore the most incomprehensible. Plato believed that the soul exists in a realm apart from the body and the thinker is separate from the world he thinks about.


The Cave starts with an acoustic guitar before a variety of instruments accompany it and the song bursts into life. With quick riffs, tapping drum beats and that infamous banjo, Mumford and his band of merry men have re-created folk music.


There’s something of Dexys Midnight Runners in the way the music goes bounding forward while the lyrics seesaw between misgivings and affirmations. “I will hold on hope/And I won’t let you choke on the noose around your neck,” Mr. Mumford vows as Winston Marshall’s banjo plinks briskly behind him. “And I’ll find strength in pain.”

Sigh No More is a triumphant, hopeful debut and has the power to capture and convey your own emotions as well as those of the band. If you’ve been waiting for that near-perfect debut of 2010, at long last – here it is.





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