In Darkness Let Me Dwell

John Downland was born in England or Ireland, fucking ages ago. Apart from this fact, not much else is known about him.

Dowland's music is often regarded as melancholic and lachrymose but that was just the fashion back then. If the plague didn't get you a big septic sword would likely lob your head off. The average life expectancy, fucking ages ago, was only six. Dowland exceeded this by a whopping four years and was brutally poisoned by a tree shrew at Epping Forest at the ripe old age of ten. By the age of ten a man was expected to have achieved much. Dowland achieved much more than that.

My favourite Dowland album is "In Darkness Let Me Dwell". On it's release this album was banned by the Cathoic Church for being "extremus upbeayte" (extremely upbeat) and "ungodley" (ungodly). The ban on this album was not lifted by the Vatican until 1983.

Listening to the album today you can still see what the fuss was all about. This, remember, was during the dark ages where subservience to God was the pinnacle of man's existance. But Dowland believed in much more than this. He believed in fun. He believed that God had placed him on earth to make people happy. To sing and dance.

When you listen to the opening songs:

Lachrimae Verae

Weep You No More, Sad Fountains

...

It's impossible not to smile. You'll move on through:

Flow My Tears

I saw my Lady weepe

...

By then, believe me, you'll be dancing as if listening to Earth Wind and Fire before heading out to paint the town red.

After the title track:

In Darkness Let Me Dwell

...

You will be as far into the depths of pure unadulterated joy as any human being should rightly go.

But this was not an age for joy. Aged eight, Dowland was chastised and brutalised for having the audacity to include a pun on his own name in one of his songs. The consort piece:

Semper Dowlands, Semper Dolens (Always Dowlands, always doleful)

...

Was considered inappropriately jolly and deleted with all due haste.

Like, Liszt, Dowland was a man out of time. His music stands as a testimony to unbridled joy in a time of religious intolerance. 

In these days of recession and hardship, I think we're due a run on Dowland.