By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
If one phrase above all others sums up Elizabethan song-making, it’s ‘hey nonny nonny’. There’s plenty of hey-nonny-nonnying going on in the song ‘It Was a Lover and His Lass’ from As You Like It; excitingly, copies of the original sheet music (by Thomas Morley) have survived from the early seventeenth century. Here’s the text of the song ‘It Was a Lover and His Lass’, followed by some words of comment and analysis.