Search: greensleeves
Why: Freddie Prinze, Jr. plays it for Emma on the recorder when he's her manny in "Friends."
Answer: A broadside ballad was registered at the London Stationer's Company in 1580 as "A New Northern Dittye of the Lady Greene Sleeves." It then appears in the surviving A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) as "A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green sleeves."
In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, written around 1602, Falstaff exclaims:
- Let the sky rain potatoes! Let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'!
The More You Know: There is a popular belief that it was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Anne rejected Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection is apparently referred to in the song, when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously." However, "Greensleeves" is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after Henry's death.
