What was Orlando thinking?

 What was Orlando thinking?

Sadly, nobody knows. He is from such an old time era, that we do not have much record about him.

Even the very piece I love written by him, 6 parts variations on "Go from my window, I have no idea when this piece was written. In fact, we don't know for sure if this piece is written by him.

This piece is "attributed" to Orlando Gibbons. But we probably, definitely, think it was written by Orlando Gibbons because of the quality of the music. No one in that time era could have possibly written such complex and beautiful polyphonic music.

I would guess that "Go from my window" was written around 1620s. One of the first published works of Gibbons' is the Fantasias, which were engraved on the plates (which historians think was around 1610). Although "Go from my window" is also a Fantasia, this was not published or numbered along with other Fantasias he wrote. In fact, most of the works by Orlando had been published after his death- among twenty four fantasias he wrote, only nine of them had been published during his lifetime. Who knows when he wrote this piece of music, but it sure hadn't been published in his early age.

Assuming that "Go from my window" was written in sometime around 1620s, let's look at what was going on Orlando's life. He had been an Organist at Chapel Royal, but as soon as he got in to the Privy Chamber, he says goodbye to Chapel Royal.  Now he moved on to Private music, away from church music.

The original tune of the variations on "Go from my window" was not a sacred song. It is one of the famous secular song, ballade, during 16th century. You will understand that it is not a sacred song when you see the lyrics :

Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    For the wind is in the west and the cuckoo's in his nest,
    And you can't have a lodging here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    O the weather it is warm, it will never do thee harm,
    And you can't have a lodging here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    The wind is blowing high, and the ship is lying by,
    And you can't have a harbouring here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    The wind and the rain have brought him back again,
    But he can't have a harbouring here.

    Go from my window, my love, my dove,
    Go from my window, my dear,
    The devil's in the man, that he will not understand
    That he can't have a lodging here.

As you can see, it's probably not about God.

I bet Orlando Gibbons got sick of playing church music all the time, that he wanted to create a beautiful six part polyphony music for an ensemble. Oh, it might as well have been his favorite song. 

That's my theory.. What do you think?