Though it is a piece of instrumental music, John Dowland printed a copy of his piece My Lord Chamberlain his Galliard at the end of his First Booke of Songs, where it might superficially seem out of place. Details in this galliard's performing practice, on the other hand, offer an excellent reason for its inclusion. Dowland's First Booke had adopted a novel approach to its musical format. Instead of the most common layouts of the time—separating each musical part into a different small partbook, or arranging all parts on one page of "choirbook" format so that people look over one another's shoulder to read the music—Dowland had his book of chamber music printed in "table" format. The various musical lines all face outward so performers sitting on the four sides of a table can all read the music at the table's center and then may still gaze at each other as they sing.

Dowland's galliard (a courtly dance of the time) intensifies this daring arrangement by asking two players to mingle their music-making on the same instrument. The lute was usually plucked by a single individual while (s)he, or another, sang the lyrics. But in this case, Dowland calls the piece "an invention for two to play upon one lute." In other words, the guitar-like instrument must lie on a table between them, or in one player's lap. Both players stroke the same instrument, and even intertwine so far as to exchange strings again and again in the final strain of the dance. Indeed, even moreso than the interplay between two bodies in the dance, the two musicians must reach a physical union as they coax music from the same instrument.

Unfortunately, there survives little evidence regarding the couple whose intimacy Dowland first graced with this music. The galliard, for the Elizabethans a popular courtly dance in moderate triple meter, is dedicated to "My Lord Chamberlain." In the year Dowland published the piece, the Lord Chamberlain of the Household for Elizabeth's England was the son of her cousin: one George Carey, the second Baron Hundson. It would always be an honor for a courtly lady or lord to receive music from the pen of the greatest lutenist of the age. Yet the particular musical incarnation of Dowland's homage here hints at a deeper familiarity, as he apparently composed for the Chamberlain an "intimate embrace" in tones.

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