I have no idea why I did this until almost two in the morning, but here is N.W.A.’s “Express yourself” with all the lyrics changed to Shakespearean iambic pentameter. I guess it fits with today’s comic about the hidden story behind Shakespeare’s death. Hath not this man still much love for the streets?

SCENE I. The New World. A theatre.

Enter YOUNG ANDRE (a Doctor) and JACKSON, both men of attitude

ANDRE

In sooth! What cowards all about us lie,

Too timid of their bodkins here to kick

Reality; an’ flaking manner in

Their cowardice doth perpetrate the sin.

JACKSON

Good sir, thou art much vested in thy work,

And good work, aye, it be, yet caution bear

That ye might dullards teach the creeping hour.

ANDRE

What would’st thou have done of me?

JACKSON

Why, sir–

A wish, and only merest wish at that,

That thou might vent thy augur and make known

To any man expression of thy thoughts.

ANDRE

I am expressing by all measures troth

Yet e’en my frame corrected by Law doth

Rebuked in prison lie, an’ Rigid Crown

Upon expressions such as these look down.

An arrow’s thrust the path of sooth I tell

Entranc’d like Fitch’s savages by Hell,

I let fall savors of a tongue, and make

My father’s face upon these acts; is it

Not necessary in men to mimic

Their Blood’s technique, or shall we now here blame

Thee, Jackson, who hath called it, in French,

The wretched odor of things said and done by men?

Recite the cant upon the drums of war

And ye shall find me flush, a merry laugh

Upon these lips from whence such words do flow.

Merry, and no man can say himself the same.

Hear now, that mine is not a hand to stay

From striking fools–one, two, down now fall all!

Down, Sciences! Down, English! Weary words

Strike quaking thunders when bereft of song

Though Yella bids a silence claim the room.

Still, burning I, with fire, yet not smoke, express

Keen thoughts though levymen collect their sess.

A dull mind is ill management, and make

A suckling whelp unweaned of knight and knave.

Then seek new means beyond the broken mould.

VILLAGERS

Expression! Expression! Go to’t! Alla stoccata carries it away!

ANDRE

Returning then, to our intended term,

’tis I, friends, Young Andre, now Doctor ‘Dre,

Restored to you upon my books’ completion.

What, ho! It was an easy thing to do.

These hollow men without expression yield

To mighty words that buffet battle fields.

Bereft of physic, they doth cling to hulls

Like barnacles to more courageous souls.

‘Tis so, ’tis so, and ever so, that those

Upon the wrong end of fortune’s wheel chase

Bleak circles round their fate, and run headlong

Into their own destruction. Yet brave men

Roar hot words in doom’s wrinkled visage and

Unaided face that spectre’s bony hand.

Confession left unheard, they hazard not

A guess while gusting forth their hearts’ tempests.

‘Tis madness, that man bends to other men,

And so submits his heart to worrying rue.

And I? Not I. I make no moan but this:

Fresh roads prove truer still than well-trod ones,

Where man looks back to see the path behind him,

That he not drift to please the route ahead.

No oath upon the hearth did man lament

That he kept true within the public square.

Such hinds make much ado of truth in deed,

While sprink’ling word with dreamers’ calumnies.

Apothecaries, all! A pox claim them!

And what is gold? A passing fancy, this–

‘Twas mine, ’tis thine, ’twill still another’s be,

And these scant few take note of folly’s wealth,

Yet fewer still make note: express thyself.

VILLAGERS

Expression! Expression! Hie ye forth and have done!

ANDRE

O, crying heart! Which sails, a luffing ship

In life’s slow seas, here charting its

Unheard expressions. Lacking grace, it plods

In most, a dying turtle’s crawl, its best

Parts still ensconced. Yet, like the unhatch’d egg,

There looms a fresher art within to grow.

What now, the lesson–all of these expressions?

My pistol thirsts to kiss its lover’s neck,

If Perfidy thy name. Thy account we forgive,

An’ lacking base to weather seasons here.

‘Tis ‘Dre, made earthly in my hot concerns,

Till all the soil is plowed, made wet, and turned.

Then climbing stalks, as warranted in sheer

Necessity, the fecund nature doth

Compel both man and plant’s explosive growth.

Within such flesh unwelcome fertile spring

The self turned ‘gainst the self whene’er I sing.

Maintaining thus my form I damage do,

Restraints too late applied I damage too.

‘Tis knowledge, sir, that burning engines moves,

And knowledge still that sets wheels in their grooves.

Enough! Now ponder all the lessons learned;

For health expressly needs must thou burned.

Exeunt all.