Gay used Scottish folk melodies mostly taken from the poet Allan Ramsay's hugely popular collection The Gentle Shepherd (1725) plus two French tunes (including the carol "Bergers, écoutez la musique!" for his song "Fill Every Glass"), to serve his hilariously pointed and irreverent texts.
The play is sometimes seen to be a reactionary call for libertarian values in response to the growing power of the conservative Whig party.