John Dowland - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

  • The science fiction author Philip K. Dick was a fan of Dowland's and his lute music is a recurring theme in Dick's novels. Dick sometimes assumed the pen-name Jack Dowland. Dick also based the title of the novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said on one of Dowland's best-known compositions. In his novel The Divine Invasion, the character Linda Fox (a thinly disguised proxy for Linda Ronstadt) is a popular singer whose repertoire consists of remakes of John Dowland compositions.
  • Rose Tremain's 1999 novel Music and Silence is set at the court of Christian IV of Denmark some years after Dowland's departure and contains several references to the composer's music and temperament: in the opening chapter, Christian remarks that "the man was all ambition and hatred, yet his ayres were as delicate as rain".
  • Aesma Daeva's song "Darkness" uses "Flow my Tears" as lyrics.
  • Both Dowland and Thomas Tallis are referenced in the Half Man Half Biscuit song, "I went to a wedding".
  • Dowland is referenced in the Big Big Train song "Reaching for John Dowland" on their album English Boy Wonders.
  • Haruki Murakami's novel 1Q84 mentions one of the characters, the dowager, as a fan of Lachrimae, and listening to it frequently.
  • Klaus Nomi's second album Simple Man juxtaposes excerpts of Dowland's music in his songs.

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