by C. Van Dyke
Note from Brioche and The Satyr Herd:
This is our very first series created by a wonderful contributor rather than by us, and we're proud that Satyr Central is the new home to Billboard Chart Sonnets, a brand new series created by Chris Van Dyke, who is taking billboard hits (one classic and one recent at a time) and rewriting them as Shakespearean sonnets!
For those wondering what the fuck Brioche's bizarre tweet about poorly photoshopping sunglasses onto a portrait of Shakespeare was, there you go.
A huge thanks to C. Van Dyke, who not only contributed these fantastic and creative sonnets, but also donated his entire contribution fee to the Nina Pop Mental Health Recovery Fund by The Okra Project, a collective supporting and providing resources to Black trans people. The site is linked if you're interested in donating!
I, uh, don't know how copyright works in terms of including the original lyrics, but for now we'll include it unless we find out it's a big no-no. We're still a newish website, so we live and we learn.
Classic
SUGAR, SUGAR (The Archies 1969)
Ah! Nectar from the sweet tropical cane
Ah! Labor of the bees, from blossoms wrung
Thou art to marzipan in kind the same:
Delectable in fine upon my tongue
As the elfin hummingbird is daily drawn
To drink from blossoms heavy with dawn’s dew
My lips to hunger ever and anon
To drink as eagerly their fill of you.
Ah! Gold ambrosia from the waxen comb
Ah! Syrup pressed from foreign, sugared beet
The only confection I need alone
Is thy whose flavor is surpassing sweet
As honeysuckle draws the errant bee
Thy heavn’ly scent compeleth me to thee
____________________________
Ah sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you
Ah honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you've got me wanting you
Modern
GOD’S PLAN (Drake, 2018)
My Dark Lady importunes: “Ah, my lord
Doth thy ardor burneth for none but me?”
But truthful must I answer with my words
And so say: “I love thee partially.”
My true devotion I reserve alone
For that woman who bore me in her womb;
As well as the coverlet in my home;
And friends, preserved in ink, lying entombed;
And various other stalwart allies
Who hath toiled o’re the years at my side.
What would be, I wonder with heavy sigh,
If n’er these bosom friends I had espied?
Fiat voluntus tua, Holy Lord
My life a plan described by God’s own word.
______________________________
She say, "Do you love me?" I tell her, "Only partly"
I only love my bed and my momma, I'm sorry
Fifty Dub, I even got it tatted on me
81, they'll bring the crashers to the party
And you know me
Turn the O2 into the O3, dog
Without 40, Oli', there'd would be no me
Imagine if I never met the broskies
God's plan, God's plan
About C. Van Dyke
Chris Vandyke was born in 1979 and spent the first 16 years of his life in the small coastal town of Gold Beach, Oregon. Since 2002 has been a High School English Teacher in the New York City Public School System, which is, needless to say, somewhat different than his hometown. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, two children, and a menagerie of animals.
You can find more of Chris's work at his website here!
Follow him on Twitter @aboutrunning.
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