Flow, my tears

[2] Like others of Dowland's lute songs, the piece's musical form and style are based on a dance, in this case the pavan.

[6] According to Holman, it exists in around 100 manuscripts and printings across Europe including England, Scotland, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Italy, in different arrangements for ensemble and solo.

[6] Other English composers in the period generally gave only one or two ideas per strain and padded them out with dull, diffusive contrapuntal writing.

Other composers have written pieces based on the work, including Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck,[7] Thomas Tomkins,[8] and Tobias Hume's What Greater Griefe,[citation needed] while John Danyel's Eyes, look no more pays clear homage to the piece,[9] as does John Bennet's "Weep, o mine eyes".

[10] In the 20th century, American composer and conductor Victoria Bond wrote Old New Borrowed Blues (Variations on Flow my Tears).

[11] Benjamin Britten quotes the incipit of "Flow, my tears" in his Lachrymae for viola, a set of variations on Dowland's ayre "If my complaints could passions move".

In 2006, the British electronic music group Banco de Gaia produced a vocoded version called "Flow my Dreams, the Android Wept".