The melancholic twang from John Dowland’s lute has shivered down to generations of English artists indirectly, too. In the early 20th Century, Edward Elgar’s haunting music was called ‘wonderful in its heroic melancholy’. Later, Pink Floyd released trippy songs like Time where they sang that “hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.” Things went into overdrive as the utopianism of the hippie years quivered and died. By 1976, Joy Division were gripping worn-out kids around the country. A decade on, The Smiths went even further. Songs like Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want and How Soon Is Now? are still benchmarks of teenage worry. John Dowland may not have sung that he was “happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I’m miserable now” – that was Morrissey. But he could have.

Naturally, not all these musicians were influenced by Dowland directly. But starting with John Dowland and his shameless self-expression, his melancholy has proved wonderfully durable. But why do the English seem so drawn to misery? Maybe it reminds us of life’s unfairness. An old English proverb remarks that “he is a fool who is not melancholy once a day.” Or perhaps it’s the weather. As Voltaire put it, “these are the dark November days when the English hang themselves.” Whatever the reason, melancholy has surely scrabbled far enough into our national identity to stay firmly put. Hopefully, anyway. It would be a shame to lose musicians like John Dowland, whose “dainties grief shall be, and tears my poisoned wine.”

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