On Desolation, Hope, and Mumford and Sons' "Feel the Tide"

As those who know me know, I love Mumford. I love their lyrics, I love their sound, I wish I could play banjo like they do.

Look at how freakin' cool these guys are. I would never wash my hair again and wear vests every day if it got me to be this cool.

I recently came across a b-side of theirs called "Feel the Tide," which is included on the deluxe version of their fantastic "Sigh No More." I'll give you the lyrics (from songmeanings.net, so any errors are the fault of that site, ha!), then my interpretation of it (and it's a doozy!):

Feel the Tide
She sits him down in a stiff chair
Rubs his back and strokes his hair
Telling him it's okay to cry
But he just sits and stares
The merciless moon outside
Has nothing now he's come to realise
Only the desolation he feels
The cold distance inside

But you and I now
We can be alright
Just hold on to what we know is true
You and I now
Though it's cold inside
Feel the tide turning

While the priest just sits and weeps
Lamenting the fact that he can see
Darkness and light in so much detail
He has given himself over
Refusing what he knows to be real
He turns away from every meal
Starving himself of goodness
He doesn't think he can heal

But you and I now
We can be alright
Just hold on to what we know is true
You and I now
Though it's cold inside
Feel the tide turning

"What if I lost all I had?"
Said the stranger to his dad
And the witness was confused
He can't tell what is bad
Instead he runs up to the nearest girl
And he comments on her glorious curls
Says, "Darling come with me
I'll show you a whole new world"

But you and I now
We can be alright
Just hold on to what we know is true
You and I now
Though it's cold inside
Feel the tide turning

So there it is, and here's what I understand of it (yes, I was an English major way back when):

The speaker is the same throughout the song - he's pointing at various examples of loss of hope, but with hope still beating, however frail.

First verse: the man is in desolation and can't even connect with his emotions anymore (she tells him it's okay to cry, but he just sits and stares). Even the moon has lost its meaning - in desolation, we believe that nothing is meaningful and never can be again. BUT the important part is that the woman is consoling him. Here there is hope. The relationship has not been severed, and she will stroke his back and hope for him.

Aww, cheer up, Johnny!

Chorus: hope lives even when it cannot be seen or felt. We feel cold inside, but hold on to what you believe, the tide is about to turn (this is like the old proverb, "The night is always darkest just before the dawn.") When hope seems totally lost, it still lives.

Second verse: the priest. This reminded me of Eleanor Rigby ("Fr. McKenzie, writing the words to a sermon that no one will hear. No one comes near. Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there"; "Fr. McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave. No one was saved"). The important part about Eleanor Rigby is that it looks at the mystery of human existence and asks us to look with it ("Look at all the lonely people - where do they all come from? Where do they all belong?), and if the song is successful, the listener realizes that the lonely people come from the same place they do, and belong to them (the listener). In fact, the listener is one of the lonely people, yet is also consoled in that we are all lonely people. We are all displaced, and we all belong.

This is something like confession: confession is the willed displacement of self, the admission of guilt in order to again belong to that family to which we already belong.

Here with Mumford, we see a priest who is deeply aware of the darkness and the light, and weeps in the face of it. But he doesn't only weep at the detail of the dark, he also weeps at the detail of the light. This, I think, is correct: we should weep in sorrow at the dark, and weep in joy and longing at the light. But here the priest has failed in the courage it takes to confront the dark and light (he laments that he can see it - in the courage of holiness, we must confront the dark and allow ourselves to be continuously confronted by the light). So failing in this goodness, he rejects the meal (fellowship, but also maybe an echo of Eucharist?) which he knows to be real, but which he cannot believe he can ever be healed enough to accept. This is desolation - the loss of hope, the complete disbelief in any possibility of restitution. Yet there is also hope! Because he still knows the truth even though he can't feel it, he can see the darkness and the light, and he still weeps. These are all doors, or windows, or cracks in his heart that the Thief may use.

Third verse: this one's a bit convoluted - there are 3 people here I think. The stranger - is he a stranger to his own father? or a stranger to the witness? I like the thought of him being called a stranger to his dad - in that sense we're dealing with estrangement, but also hope (he's turning to his dad in his need, in his fear of losing all). So estrangement, but also hope for restitution. But maybe the most important point between these two is that it is the fear of loss that brings them back together - suffering, even the thought of loss of what we love, can breed restitution, reconciliation. This is the Paschal mystery - it is in our suffering that we can be healed, in our dying that we can be raised. Here the stranger is dying to whatever pride or hurt that separated him from his father, and asking his father to again be his father.

I've always been reminded of the Prodigal Son by another one of Mumford's great lines: "It's not the long walk home that will change this heart of mine, but the welcome I receive at the return."

But the witness is confused at this hope for resurrection. He can't understand how a stranger can again become unstrange to his father.  He continues to cling to what he knows, which is to stay on the surface - he runs to the first girl he sees and invites her into what can only be a superficial relationship (he comments on her curls and offers a rather tired pick up line). He doesn't know what is bad - he's too confused by his refusal to understand the redemptive aspect of suffering, so he remains in the world of self-centered pleasure-seeking. But there is also some small sliver of hope here: her curls truly are glorious - she truly is beautiful. Glory is never something that allows one to stay on the surface, but reaches out to them, confronts them, and demands a response.

My boy, H. Urs von B.:
"There is a moment when the interior light of the "eyes of faith" becomes one with the exterior light that shines from Christ, and this occurs because man's thirst, as he strives and seeks after God, is quenched as he finds repose in the revealed form of the Son."

There is danger of the despair of only staying on the surface, of missing the fact that this girl is truly beautiful, in herself, but also hope that there can be true connection, true intimacy. Why? Because there is glory in her. There is Christ in her, by virtue of His love.

Chorus again: but you and I, we are acquainted with all of this. We know the dark, we know the cold, but don't lose hope, even when your hope is gone. The tide is about to turn. But not only that - the answer is here too: good ol' Marcus is not just telling us that the tide is about to turn. He's also telling us to feel the tide turning. In other words, begin to already feel what is about to happen. It may not even be happening yet, but begin to feel it. This is like St. Thomas, who said "If you wish be virtuous, act as if you already are." If you wish the tide to turn from despair to hope, feel it already doing so.

Credit where it's due.