The Cave

Mumford and Sons are an English folk-rock group which makes up of multi-instrumentalists who are known for incorporating traditional folk instruments such as banjo, mandolin and resonator guitar. They are part of the rising community of the ‘west London folk scene’ with the number of ‘folk’ artist such as themselves, Noah and the Whale, Laura Marling and many more from west London gaining popularity and recognition.The Cave is a song written by Marcus Mumford of Mumford and Sons. Mumford and Sons are known for their implicit messages regarding towards daily struggles, celebrations, and everything in life really. Much like their genre counterparts, these songs offer a deeper and implicit meaning in them, unlike pop music which is generally much about sex, drugs, getting drunk and rather explicit meanings. 

Thus the cave is no exception. At first listen, the song seems to be about persuading a man to come out of his cave and offering him support and strength and hoping he sees the world differently but it really is a song inspired by metaphors. Play the music video of the song below and let me know in the comments below if you had the same view of the song as I did.

Usually when listening to a song, I would immediately like most of you guys, listen and be attracted to the melody and the tune of the music, however The Cave is different. I immediately saw philosophical and even theological undertones (metaphors) in the song.

Listening to the lyrics immediately brought me to think about the probability of Marcus’s reference to Plato’s writing, allegory of the cave. The philosopher describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected on the wall created by people carrying objects in front of a fire. There is a low wall between them which only allows the shadow of the objects to be cast. The prisoners begin to assign names to these shadows as they are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. The story continues according to Plato’s Socrates, a prisoner is released and he is exposed to the reality of the world and he finds it hard to belief as the ‘shadows’ were only form of reality he has been exposed to. He struggles to adapt to the ‘new world’ as he leaves the cave. Plato argued that the invisible world is the most intelligible, and that the visible world is the least knowable, and therefore the most incomprehensible. The Greek philosopher believed that the soul exists in a realm apart from the body and the thinker is separate from the world he thinks about. 

           

‘So come out of your cave walking on your hands, and see the world hanging upside down, You can understand dependence, When you know the maker’s land’. The common belief of coming out from a cave would be being lost back in time. Unable to catch up with the fast paced world, coming out of the cave would make you seem outdate, out of touch of the world. However the song suggests the complete opposite. It suggests coming out of the cave as having a fresh perspective of the world and looking at things differently in hope to make us realize that we depend on our creator, god.

The song also had a reference to ancient Greek poet Homer’s Greek epic, Odyssey. The basic metaphoric terms used in the song are aplenty, which provides implicit meanings and opens it to different interpretations of the song. The Cave is not their only song to reference a classical piece of philosophical literature. This song not only leans on a heavier reference towards, Plato’s allegory of the cave, but it uses various references and metaphoric terms throughout the song. This results in a very implicit song, which could be interpreted in various ways, but the common or main characteristic of this song is that it has an inspiring message to its listeners especially to the younger audience who may be going through struggles in life etc., which makes the song popular.