10 Incredible Songs That Took NO Time To Write

Council estate skiffle troubadour Jake Bugg once labelled Mumford and Sons as a bunch of ‘posh farmers with banjos’, and let’s be honest, he wasn’t too far wide of the mark.

With their tweed waistcoats and Shakespearean references, they were a bucolic anomaly in the British indie scene, and while they may have spent the past few years trying to rebrand themselves as a Coldplay tribute act, it’s important to remember where they came from.

And let’s face it, while Marcus and his boys have never been the coolest band in the world, we’ve all had a cheeky singalong to The Cave at some point or other, probably butchering that big held chorus note in the process.

But the group’s calling card single was actually whipped up in no time at all. The song, with its thumping beat and spasmodic banjo twanging, was written during the soundcheck of a gig in a small pub in Edinburgh called Bannerman’s. Needless to say after debut album Sigh No More turned them into festival headliners across the globe, they probably haven’t played it in too many venues of that size since.