On Wednesday, Jan 4, 2006, at 06:53 America/Los_Angeles, Ed Durbrow 
wrote:

>> Um, given how depressing so much of Dowland is (or as Ellen Hargis
>> put it, all melancholy, all the time), wouldn't that be
>> counterproductive? :)
>
> That's what I thought, but he gave me some examples of the songs he
> was playing and why it made her feel better. I've forgotten what they
> were though.

Dowland wrote plenty of songs that are happy, or funny, or up-tempo, or 
all of those things.  Just in the Third Book, a quick look yields:

Time stands still
Behold a wonder here
Daphne was not so chaste
When Phoebus first didi Daphne love
Say love if ever thou didst find
What if I never speed
Fie on this feigning
It was a time when silly bees could speake

And, of course, Dowland's contemporaries would be quick to pick up the 
sexual double meanings in all the "death" references in other songs, 
though these are probably a bad choice for a modern hospital room.

HP



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