Song Analysis: Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

I recently got into the band Mumford & Sons. A friend introduced me to their song Awake My Soul and I loved their sound and their edge. I thought they were Irish at first, but I found out later that they're British. Then I watched them perform The Cave at the Grammy's and I bought the album a few days later. I love the whole album and I've been listening to it for weeks. I learned that Marcus Mumford wrote most of the songs for the album Sigh No More which makes it that much better. I love all the lyrics to their songs, but my sister and I have been talking a little about Little Lion Man and what it might mean. We both have different ideas and either could work as adequate interpretations (as I said last time, the cool thing about analyzing literature is that there can be more than one right interpretation). I'm going to write my humble opinion, but first here are the lyrics to the song:

Weep for yourself, my man,

You'll never be what is in your heart

Weep Little Lion Man,

You're not as brave as you were at the start

Rate yourself and rake yourself,

Take all the courage you have left

Wasted on fixing all the problems 

That you made in your own head

But it was not your fault but mine

And it was your heart on the line

I really f***** it up this time

Didn't I, my dear?

Didn't I, my...

Tremble for yourself, my man,

You know that you have seen this all before

Tremble Little Lion Man,

You'll never settle any of your scores

Your grace is wasted in your face,

Your boldness stands alone among the wreck

Now learn from your mother or else spend your days Biting your own neck

But it was not your fault but mine

And it was your heart on the line

I really f***** it up this time

Didn't I, my dear? 

Didn't I, my dear?

But it was not your fault but mine

And it was your heart on the line

I really f***** it up this time

Didn't I, my dear? 

Didn't I, my dear?

(Source)

The language of the song is fairly straightforward, so what I want to address first is the narrator of the song. The way I see it, the narrator of this song is a distraught father speaking to his hot-headed, cowardly son. Some other people I've talked to think the verses of the song are spoken by a person who has been cast off by the person who they were in a relationship with and the chorus is spoken by the person who did the hurting. This point of view could also work, but for this post I'm operating under the assumption that whole song is being sung by a father.

* * * 

The first verse starts off with the father sneering at his son, accusing him of being a dreamer and never being able to live up to the aspirations he has in his heart. Mumford rasps the words 'little lion man' like a heinous insult, and I believe it is meant to be. What is a little lion man? I think the father is calling his son a man who is loud and proud like a lion, but who has the heart of a little, scared child. The son has turned into an introspective parasite who lives in the fantasy world he's made up in his head. He is a coward who, the father claims, will never amount to anything. One phrase I find particularly interesting is 'rate yourself and rake yourself.' I may be incorrect in my interpretation, but I think the father is telling his son to rate himself because the son will find out that he lacks everything in character and will fall to pieces and thus have to rake up the shards of his broken personality. 

The words of condemnation the father has for his son are harsh, to say the least. But the sentiments that the father reserves for himself are even more acerbic. After all the insults he hurls at his son, the father goes straight into the chorus casting the blame on himself for the shambles his son's life has become. By the tone that Mumford uses in the chorus, it is clear that the father deeply regrets his decision to leave his son, to set a bad example, or whatever it is he did. Normally, I'm not exactly gung-ho for songs that throw around cuss worlds just for the shock value of it, but in this song I feel it is entirely appropriate. Maybe the father is having a conversation with his son for the first time in years. Given what we know of the son, he is probably skeptical and unwilling to hear what his dad has to say. Perhaps the father uses harsh language--something common to the younger generation--as a way to sort of put them both on the same level so that the son will be more inclined to listen.

We learn a little bit more about the son in the second verse. We learn that he is smart ('you know that you have seen this all before.'); perhaps he is the genius type who makes everyone think he is unintelligent. We also learn that he is a gambler (whether he gambles money or time or something else is unspecified) who expects grace from a world that will give him none. The father tells his son that his boldness will never be enough to survive in the world where he has destroyed his life. The line 'learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck' seems to imply that the boy has grown up with his mom and away from his father. In my opinion, the father is telling his son to look to his mother for the right way to live or he'll spend the rest of his life beating himself up for all the wrong things he did. 

The chorus repeats and then Mumford vocalizes for a little while and the song ends. This song is very sad to me because of all the unresolved regret the father possesses. The song itself is in a minor key and the instrumentation is both heavy--to symbolize the anger the father has for his son and himself--and whimsical--to represent the grief and shame the father begrudges himself. Mumford does an excellent job, not only in Little Lion Man, but in many other of their songs, of expressing the mood of a song with the instrumentation. 

I know this isn't as long as the last one I did; the Spektor song had a lot more poetic jargon to wade through. I hope you enjoyed reading this and I encourage you to comment with your own thoughts and interpretations. I would love to hear what you think! Thanks for reading :)

Cheers!     

Song Analysis: Hero by Regina Spektor

Hero by Regina Spektor
He never ever saw it coming at all
He never ever saw it coming at all
He never ever saw it coming at all

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right

Hey, open wide, here comes original sin
Hey, open wide, here comes original sin
Hey, open wide, here comes original sin

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right

No one's got it all
No one's got it all
No one's got it all

Power to the people
We don't want it
We want pleasure
And the TVs try to rape us
And I guess that they're succeeding
Now we're going to these meetings
But we're not doing any meeting
And we're trying to be faithful 
But we're cheating, cheating, cheating

Hey, open wide, here comes original sin
Hey, open wide, here comes original sin
Hey, open wide, here comes original sin

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right

No one's got it all
No one's got it all
No one's got it all

Power to the people
We don't want it
We want pleasure
And the TVs try to rape us
And I guess that they're succeeding
And we're going to these meetings
But we're not doing any meeting
And we're trying to be faithful 
But we're cheating, cheating, cheating

I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved
I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved
I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved
I'm the hero of the story
Don't need to be saved

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right

No one's got it all
No one's got it all
No one's got it all 

*~*~*

     Let me start off by saying that this is one of my favorite songs by Regina Spektor. I absolutely love her music and it is so much fun to analyze and think about. When I listen a song, I try not to take everything at face value. Most songs always have a deeper  meaning than what first comes to mind when listening to or reading the lyrics. I've been wanting to analyze this song since the first time I heard it. Keep in mind, this is only the opinion of one person and you might have a completely different take on it. That's the cool thing about analyzing literature--there is always more than one viewpoint to take. These are just the conclusions that I was able to draw. So here goes nothing. :)

     The song Hero by Regina Spektor is incredibly relevant and relatable to everyone in the whole world. Yeah, I know that's a pretty broad statement, but it's true. Some lines in the song seem to be speaking directly about certain aspects of human nature; aspects that are seen everywhere in every person's life. Hero is a story about one person's discovery of some universal truths about the human nature and how he deals with them. The song has 2 voices, the narrator, who sings in a high, whispery manner, and the Character who sings in a throaty, full, and lower voice. The two transition a couple times in the duration of the song and it is fairly easy to distinguish whose voice is whose. 

     The song starts out with the narrator beginning the story with the repeated phrase 'He never ever saw it coming at all.' The key is minor, the melody haunting and foreboding. This phrase serves as a sort of 'Once upon a time,' for the beginning of the story. The narrator tells us that what Character is about to discover is something he never 'saw coming.'  As the narrator's part ends temporarily, Character comes in on the scene repeating the phrase 'It's all right,' over and over again. Regina's intonation of this phrase is confident but comforting. It almost sounds like a lullaby, as if Character is trying to assure himself and maybe someone else that everything is okay, that there is nothing to worry about. 

    The narrator now addresses the listener. He tells the listener to 'open wide,' and announces the the coming of 'original sin.' This repeated line foreshadows a coming lyric that will appear later on. The phrase 'original sin' refers to the sin of pride (Sin in its most basic form is pride, and is therefore, often referred to as the original sin) and this is what the narrator is predicting. The line 'open wide' is a little more tricky to analyze. It could be referring to the well-known idea of "Eating a piece of humble pie," since the 'original sin' is pride (and the opposite of pride is humility).  Another way of looking at this phrase is assuming that the narrator is talking to Character, telling him to 'open wide' because his monstrous piece of humble pie is is coming to him soon if he continues in the thoughts that will develop lyrically later on in the song. I am inclined the think the first idea of the narrator speaking to the listener is a more accurate interpretation.  

    Before I continue on to the next line of the song, I want to address this one little tidbit at the end of the phrase I just talked about. The second time the narrator says, 'Hey, open wide, here comes original sin,' Regina makes a subtle noise that sounds like a resigned sigh. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I want to know what you think it means--if you think it means anything at all. 

     After the narrator speaks to the to the listener, we come back to Character who is still repeating 'It's alright,' with a slight change in the timbre of his voice. He sounds more reserved and unsure of what he is saying. Maybe he is doubting the thought that everything is alright. What he says next resonates the implied attitudes of this second round of 'it's alright,'s. 'No one's got it all,'; Character excuses his doubts with the thought that no one has everything figured out in a tidy little box. Why should he have to? The dynamic of the song becomes increasingly louder, symbolizing Character's frustration and he bursts into a tirade of complaints about humankind. 

     Regina sings 'Power to the people, we don't want it we want pleasure.' He is accusing the race of man to be all talk and no action. 'Power to the people' is/was a popular rally cry for the Civil Rights movements as well as for other political issues where the American people were calling for the government to give the power to the general populace, where they believed it belonged. The people wanted change and they wanted to bring it about. Character accuses his fellow people--and perhaps himself, as well--of claiming to want to take action but in reality only wanting the ability to live carefree and enjoyably without rules or consequences. 
      "And the TVs try to rape us and I guess that they're succeeding," is another harsh accusation Character throttles
at himself and his fellow humans. He claims all humans are too lazy to find out truth for themselves so they look to
easy and accessible sources (such as TV; this could also be referring to other sources of media such as the internet 
or magazines) rather than truly thinking for themselves or searching for a higher standard of truth other than the mindlessness they hear on television. I also think there is a subtle jab at the media in this line; Character likens the effect that the media has on the every day person to rape (or taking advantage of, to be more specific). Character then questions the significance of even trying to take actions ("we're going to all these meetings but we're not doing any meeting.") in a tone of voice that sounds like a fed up teenaged kid. He realizes that something is fundamentally wrong with the way humans are operating. He doesn't know the answer but attributes some of the problem to the fact that 'we're trying to be faithful but we're cheating.' Regina repeats the word three times, each repetition sounding more and more defeated. 
     At this point the distinction between the narrator and Character's voices becomes unclear. The line originally spoken by the narrator is now sung like the Character--loud and clear. The voice repeats the last three sets of lyrics until he comes to the line "...trying to be faithful but we're cheating." He trails off with the word 'cheating' once again but this time, instead of repeating himself he comes to the climax of the song and the conclusion in his mind: 'I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved!' Regina delivers this lyric more forcefully than all the others. Vocally, it pounds as hard as the fingers hit the piano keys. Character disregards the fallacies he has seen and now tries to convince himself that nothing is really wrong. He's the commander of himself, he lacks nothing, he wants nothing, he needs nothing, he does not need to be saved. But maybe he wants to be saved; because after screaming 'I'm the hero of this story, don't need to be saved,' four times, he returns to almost chanting 'it's alright.' This time, Regina sings it softly, it's barely audible at some points. It sounds like she's rocking herself back and forth trying to shut out all the noise so she can concentrate on this one line. She resumes singing 'no one's got it all,' and after a few seconds, the song fades out. 
     I think the song is brilliant in the lyrics and the way Regina delivers it. There is a lot of repetition, but I think it's an effective tool that causes people to truly listen to and think about what message the song is conveying.