Man, was I excited when my friend first told me to watch the trailer for the new Coen brothers’ movie, Inside Llewyn Davis. Joel and Ethan, John Goodman, a rousing folk tale, NYC in the 60s. . . it was like a sweet parody of my most absurd dreams, sans Jeff Bridges as Mr. Twit. I was totally on board, but my friend couldn’t resist further pushing the sale—claiming that the featured song was one of the most beautiful he had ever heard. Though he’s a chronic superlativist, forever hamming up food joints and local bands as “the best in the city,” he is usually on point and I knew even if it wasn’t the most beautiful song I had ever heard, it’d still be quite beautiful and I’d be grateful.
But my stock in a generally trustworthy guy was dwindling when he warily conceded Marcus Mumford, of Mumford and Sons, co-sings this tune. So like that, even the guaranteed beauty I rely on, the safety-net beauty in the kernel of the superlative, was at risk. Maybe I wouldn’t be so grateful this time. He knows better; I don’t enjoy listening to Mumford and Sons at all. But this isn’t about that. I think it’s a subject been pretty well covered, and I’m striving for a morsel of authenticity like my man Marcus seems to avoid at all costs.
The song is a cover of Bob Dylan’s Fare Thee Well and indeed, it is beautiful. It’s a two man collaboration put on by Oscar Isaac (our Llewyn Davis) and Marcus Mumford, and it resonates with me akin to the way most good and gritty folk songs do—it makes me miss home, it makes me want to grow a beard, smoke from a pipe, and to write handwritten letters to forgotten friends. In rare form, it’s a Dylan cover I appreciate.
Isaac and Mumford nailed it, and now I dislike Mumford even more.
Like I said– this isn’t about how Mumford & Sons are the worst. Rather, it’s about how they are, but don’t have to be. Contrived folk and rock bands are a dime a dozen, and I’ve come to terms with that. But usually their contrived persona and sound is a derivative of just being a horrible band. Now that I know Marcus Mumford is talented, now that I know he has become something he didn’t have to, I’m stuck actively thinking about him.
Last year the Chicago Tribune ran a piece headlined “Does VW deal make Wilco a sellout” after the band licensed a handful of songs for a Volkswagen TV campaign. In response, Jeff Tweedy said, “I think about telling my dad, who worked for 46 years on the railroad, ‘Somebody offered me $100,000 to put my song in a movie, and I said no because it’s a stupid movie.’ He would want to kill me. The idea of selling out is only understandable to people of privilege.”
Perhaps Tweedy is right. Selling out might be an elitist construction; something totally foreign to the hardworking proletariat in this context. I think, however, there are more ways than one to sell out– all sordid—but some magnitudes less than others. For instance, if there’s a miserable excuse for a band that can reap the rewards of the miserable excuse of a market, then sure. It’s a smart business tactic and they didn’t abandon their innate musical faculties because they had none to begin with. They might propagate music they aren’t proud of, but they also aren’t depriving us of anything better.
But if there’s a band with special ability, with a chance to put out some awesomely organic, self-inspired splendor out there that instead chooses to appeal to the tastes of a wider audience—curbing their talent in the process—then I think the hardworking proletariat would start to understand, and start to disapprove. It’s an act wholly more shameful than that of the talentless band. . . Bringing us worthless shit is better than bringing us worthless shit and depriving us of something brilliant.
Maybe it’s just a hopelessly romantic plea, but I’d like to think selling out should also only be understandable to musicians without talent. To people who can’t sell out because they never have, or will have, something worth buying. And that’s where Marcus Mumford has crossed me, selling out after he has proven how incredibly beautiful he could sell in.
The soundtrack for Llewyn Davis is produced by T Bone Burnett, and it’s worth checking out here.