Classic Clips: Mumford & Sons “I Will Wait”, Edinburgh 2010

When I was a student up in Edinburgh, I was on nodding acquaintance with Marcus Mumford, who was playing open mic pub gigs with songs that would eventually be sung in arenas and at Glastonbury. He dropped out to pursue his musical career after only a term, leaving me to get on with undergraduate study.

As I was finishing my thesis, his band Mumford & Sons were doing well enough to gain worldwide radio airplay and chart hits. Their music would be described as Stadium Folk, although they rather ruined much goodwill when then bassist Winston Marshall was less than kind towards the banjo.

In March 2010, on Marcus’ return to the city to play a show at the Queens Hall, the band played a Toad Session for Matthew Young, who ran Song, by Toad Records and was plugged in to the local music scene as well as Americana and roots around the world. His Toadcasts were always an enjoyable, if sweary, listen.

‘I Will Wait’ was the lead single from the second Mumford & Sons album “Babel”, which astoundingly went on to win the Album of the Year Grammy prize. The band previewed the song in Matthew’s living room two years before it was eventually released; at the time they were touring debut album “Sigh No More”.

In this clip, the song is half a step higher than the eventual studio version, and the distinctive syncopated patten on the acoustic guitar doesn’t enter until the song’s third verse, giving the first two verses a straighter feel. Rather than launching into the danceable groove of the recorded version, this version builds towards that hoedown from an understated opening few minutes. Ben Lovett plays the accordion lightly, with the band harmonies prominent, building on the quiet tone of their song ‘Timshel’.

The lyrics are all there, however: “a tethered mind, free from the lies”, “shake the excess” and the image of kneeling down. There’s also the coda at the close of the song: “raise my hands, paint my spirit gold and bow my head, keep my heart slow”. Absent, however, is the line that would eventually give the song its title; when Matthew uploaded it at the time, it was listed as ‘Untitled’.

The band, now a trio having thrown Marshall aboard, will be at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Opry centenary celebrations. Their fifth album “Rushmere” came out in March 2025 and the tour to promote it, where they will be supported by Sierra Ferrell, includes a pair of dates at the O2 Arena. Truly, Marcus has come a long way from the undergraduate classroom, and he has enjoyed a 15-year career as a singer/songwriter and bandleader.