Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favourite Songs

Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favourite Songs
Erik Didriksen

‘One of the very best collections of pop songs written in the style of William Shakespeare that I’ve read so far this year!’ ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic‘Ever wonder what Taylor Swift and Beyoncé would sound like in iambic pentameter? We hadn’t either, but now we can’t get enough’ TIME‘Amazing’ BuzzfeedThink modern pop music is missing a little poetry? Prefer rhyme schemes to the club scene? Wait for the volta more often than the drop?If so, Pop Sonnets is the anthology for you. From ABBA, The Beatles and Michael Jackson to Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, this witty and wonderful mash-up collection has a sonnet for every pop fan in your life.

Copyright (#ue1e987bb-a720-5b5e-ab33-da07e105e521)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

First published by Fourth Estate in 2015

Copyright © Erik Didriksen 2015

Cover Layout Design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover illustration by Martin Hargreaves

Illustrations here (#litres_trial_promo), here (#litres_trial_promo) and here (#litres_trial_promo) courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London

Erik Didriksen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008137199

Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008145439

Version: 2015-09-16

DEDICATION (#ue1e987bb-a720-5b5e-ab33-da07e105e521)

To Becca,

the left side of my brain

and the entirety of my heart

CONTENTS

Cover (#uaf8d53bc-b943-53f9-a40b-e405dd3092bc)

Title Page (#uda561495-daee-5a0f-bfe2-a0f5f90c6220)

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

I. SONNETS OF LOVE

Rick Astley, ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’

Carly Rae Jepsen, ‘Call Me Maybe’

Backstreet Boys, ‘I Want It That Way’

One Direction, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’

Celine Dion, ‘My Heart Will Go On’

The Wonders, ‘That Thing You Do!’

Bruno Mars, ‘Just the Way You Are’

Christina Aguilera, ‘Genie in a Bottle’

The Cure, ‘Friday I’m in Love’

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, ‘You’re the One That I Want’

The Monkees, ‘I’m a Believer’

Neil Diamond, ‘Sweet Caroline’

Sam Cooke, ‘Wonderful World’

Weezer, ‘Buddy Holly’

Guns N’ Roses, ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’

Nicki Minaj, ‘Super Bass’

The Police, ‘Roxanne’

Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, ‘Umbrella’

Van Morrison, ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’

Spin Doctors, ‘Two Princes’