Spectator competition winners: Sonnets as the Beatles (or Abba) might have written them

The invitation to take a song by Abba or the Beatles and rewrite the lyrics as a sonnet went down a storm and drew a large, clever and funny entry. John Lennon once said, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine: ‘…that’s been my hang-up, you know— continually trying to be Shakespeare…’. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the overwhelming majority of you plumped for Beatles tunes as your starting point. Having said that, Paul McCartney’s raucous ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’ — in which he pretty much repeats the same line (the title) over and over again — wasn’t the most obvious choice, so props to Edward Graham, who managed to tease a creditable sonnet out of it.

We needn’t be ashamed. Why must we hide? Our frolicsome experiments have slowed; The road’s a place we yet have never tried. There shall be none about us to observe This chapter of our ever-playful story.