La Canzone di "Bitches Ain't Shit"

I've been spending my off hours from dissertation writing (and there have been many) working on my "translation" of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit" into an Italian canzone; well, it's not in Italian, but the principles underlying the metric structure are the same. The canzone is derived from a troubadour song form representative of the elaborate games they were fond of playing in their lyric compositions. It's five verses of twelve lines all of which must end in one of five words and finishes in a five line envoi that uses each of the words once. If you compare my lyric to Dre's, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how faithful the translation is given the absolutely absurd constraints. Bon Apetit!

Canzone di “Bitches Ain’t Shit”

one Eric Wright, a well-known whetted tart,
a boon companion who’d with ladies play,
made turns of verse the lubricant of tarts’
weak thighs—oh how we loved to taste that tart
and wicked fame! so long my purse was fat,
I cared not where proceeded she, the tart
who with the paler ladies dined—that tart!—
on sausages she’d tickle off to trick
them of their coin. no profit her the trick,
so suing me she’d have her due, the tart,
because she cannot bide the cruel streets:
this truer tale for you, ye friendly streets.

seducing girls too coy to leave the street
be, needing minted dough for juicy tarts
we slip in and sloppily out the streets
(I, Dre, And Eastwood traveling the streets)
in games of slapping jack the boys will play
but loving not the ladies of the street.
the whores who like it wandering the streets
will give it up with coin to spare your fat
belly; your wick wet and wallet fat,
you leave her to the malice of the streets
and entertain companions with the tricks
you satisfied yourselves to have and trick.

have got my tipple—Snoop Dogg summons—tricks
that means—to Longplage head I down the street
to meet a wet and fête-for-fondling trick;
so here I am and ready for the trick
with naught but sausages to stuff the tart
and strumpets on my loins like coats, thus tricks—
I, kennel bred and loving not those tricks,
how could I trust a lady for to play?
(wherefore a trick’s a whore) I seldom play
with my own heart on ladies touted tricks
(wherefore a whore is mean); my sausage fat
she’ll gobble up and bolt, her clam now fat.

one Mandy May, whose belly I stuffed fat
each day, her kitty playing purring tricks
on my weak lap such that the cat went fat—
my fellows said for anyone would fat
the lap. I never would have thought the streets
to claim her—six months gone, the bailiff fat
with me, Herr D.O.C. and Dre in fat-
ted carriage hail me, “Snoop, your furry tart’s
been bobbing gents blue while you went tart
and soured;” I seize my sword to trim the fat,
beat down the door to find on the floor at play
my kindred Daz, who with my tart would play!

with wined-up tarts I wouldn’t even play:
both they and I do know the jellied fat
won’t flow through Death Row; the fellows play
on swings and ring-ting-tings, the bellows play
out loud unruly things, the truest tricks
we sing in tongues whet numb with dinner plays.
when fiddling with the sausages, I play
quite mean, I scrub my shrub on washboard streets,
I comb fur coats with tender boys the street
grinds down—I wouldn’t say that I would play
with any ring-ding-dong, but any tart
with tongue out long would make a man go tart.


Envoi:

amounting to but naught the saucy tart
on meat would suckle and with balls would play
until with satisfaction I’d be fat:
she’d find her way to yet another trick,
and I’d find fresh conveyance thru the streets.

The (Not Quite) New into the Old

My first encounter with Dr. Dre's 1992 effort The Chronic was in my brother's car, back in the days when "your first car" generally meant no air conditioning, in the middle of summer, windows rolled down, an old school Sony Discman slightly larger than my Wii connected to a cigarette lighter for power and an odd tape adapter designed to interface the digital with the hopelessly analog. A melancholic bit of verse I wrote while watching the wonderfully awful Dead Poets Society (whose only useful truth is that A Midsummer Night's Dream leads to suicide) reminded me of how sweaty I felt.

I wanted to rid my happiness of hap
and happenstance – what sweeps me
into piles of dirt and wasted skin –
I was made of what others had left
behind. I knew and tried to be hip,
but the hipper I felt the more I saw
dust and ash the substance of myself:
ash, for I was burned and sooted well,
to dust,

That's all the further I got. My most recent encounter with The Chronic, where Ben Folds actually got a bunch of folk-loving Ann Arborites to chant "bitches can't hang with the streets," led to a quizzical moment with the Gimlet before a snooze of a job talk, where we hypothesized Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit" as a 14th century canzone. Our initial efforts were giggle worthy (as are most of our earnest efforts), so I decided to take up the task. The work is still in progress, but my first offerings (the first stanza and envoi) show promise, I think.

Canzone di “Bitches Ain’t Shit”

one Eric Wright, a well-known whetted tart,
a boon companion who’d with ladies play,
made turns of verse the lubricant of tarts’
weak thighs—oh how he loved to taste that tart
and wicked fame! so long my purse was fat,
I cared not where proceeded she, the tart
who with the paler ladies dined—that tart!—
on sausages she’d tickle off to trick
them of their coin. no profit her the trick,
so suing me she’d have her due, the tart,
because she cannot bide the cruel streets:
this truer tale for you, ye friendly streets.

Envoi:

amounting to but naught the saucy tart
on meat would suckle and with balls would play
until with satisfaction I’d be fat:
she’d find her way to yet another trick,
and I’d find fresh conveyance thru the streets.

I wonder how a song of Dre's would measure on the infamous J. Evans Pritchard scale. What would its total area be?