Editor’s note: This story appeared as part of The Pitt News 2007 April Fools’ edition. It is… Editor’s note: This story appeared as part of The Pitt News 2007 April Fools’ edition. It is a work of fiction produced solely for entertainment value.

Hot on the heels of her high-heeled debut album Paris, Paris Hilton will put out yet again by releasing a single steeped in dietary advice.

Whereas singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens garnered press in 2003 by vowing to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, Hilton made headlines this week by announcing the release of her new single, “Sweeter than Splenda,” a folk ballad commemorating the 50 calories she’s consumed this month.

“It’s going to be hot, naturally,” Hilton said during a recent telephone interview. “The diet I’m on keeps my body looking totally skeletal. I wanted to put out a single that speaks to teen girls wanting to drop below 80 pounds. Dreams can come true, and I want these girls to know that.”

Surprisingly, Hilton managed to recruit Stevens’ certified songwriting talents for the project. While Stevens has requested that his name not be included in the song’s liner notes or ever again mentioned in association with “that godless, blonde succubus,” he was willing to comment on his recent collaboration with Hilton.

“When Paris first approached me about contributing to ‘Sweeter than Splenda,’ my first reaction was to vomit, then to pray a lot,” Stevens said, kneeling inside a confessional booth at Most Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, N.Y. “But, after throwing back a few shots of holy water and saying about 400 rosaries, I decided hey, what the hell, how bad could it be?”

Apparently, pretty bad.

Witnesses say that the one-week recording session at Hilton’s own Heiress Records studio was marked by frequent shouting, occasional bursts of gunfire and coma-inducing cocaine binges.

“I was just trying to show Sufjan a good time,” Hilton giggled. “He’s such an uptight perfectionist, you know? The first few days were, like, pretty rough, but once my dealer from Colombia flew in, Sufjan sure became a lot nicer.”

“I’m truly convinced she’s the devil,” Stevens said.

When it came time to record the music, Hilton surprised Stevens with news that she’d recently learned to play guitar, and that the song would serve to display her newly acquired musicianship.

“On our third morning in the studio, Paris walks in, completely nude, with a neon-pink Fender slung across her chest,” Stevens said. “Now, I knew that she could Playboy quite well, but I wasn’t so confident she could play guitar,” Stevens said, seemingly proud of the pun he’d made.

“Can I play guitar? You bet your ‘Simple Life’ I can,” Hilton said. “OK, so maybe I didn’t actually take lessons or whatever, but I crashed at Iggy Pop’s house for a few weeks last summer. After we’d hook up, he’d teach me some power chords and how to light my own feces on fire. Rock is hot.”

As it turns out, Stevens wasn’t exactly floored by Hilton’s guitar-playing ability.

“I’m not sure how fornicating with the defunct king of glam-punk makes Paris think that she can play an instrument,” Stevens said. “And besides, ‘Sweeter than Splenda’ was intended to be a folk song, not a heroin-inspired romp through the devil’s rose garden.”

Luckily, Stevens and Hilton were able to reconcile their artistic differences long enough for the song’s creation. The finished version of “Sweeter than Splenda” packs the emotional punch of Stevens’ finest work – think “Casimir Pulaski Day,” but substitute the lover-dying-of-cancer theme with one of voluntary starvation.

“Yay, I love folk!” Hilton declared. “My lyrics have this hot honesty to them where I address dieting, love and even politics. For instance, the refrain goes, ‘Baby, your love is sweeter than Splenda/Gonna drink you in my water, gonna put you in my tea/Yeah, you can eat me like a Wheat Thin if you wanna/President Bush is stupid.”

Preferring to avoid talk of the song’s lyrical content and continually popping Tums and Dramamine, Stevens explained his instrumental contribution to the track.

“I tried, God I tried, to dress this musical corpse in a respectable burial gown of elegant acoustic guitar and softly wilting horns,” Stevens said. “But there was just no way to save it from Paris’ vapid, syphilitic persona. She’s worse than [Lindsay] Lohan, for Christ’s sake.”

Hilton’s label Heiress Records has confirmed that “Sweeter than Splenda” will be released in stores next Tuesday and will be available as an iTunes download on the following day. Billboard magazine predicts that the single will dominate its “Hot 100” chart for months, possibly years.

“When you’re this hot, you’re always on top,” Hilton said. “I know I’ve done nothing to deserve all this fame and attention, but isn’t it fun just the same?”

Positioning himself on a ledge high atop the Empire State Building, Stevens took one final look at his surroundings and made a fearless, if dejected-sounding, declaration: “Music is dead, and this Jezebel is to blame. While I can’t prevent any of you from purchasing ‘Sweeter than Splenda,’ I can quell my own disgraceful urges by plummeting from this earthly precipice. Peace out, gangstas!”

Learning of Stevens’ untimely end, Hilton took a contemplative drag on her Parliament Light and forced a single tear from her left eye.

“This is totally tragic,” she said. “But there’s no better way to honor Sufjan’s memory than by buying like 40 billion copies of this single. Mail it to your grandparents, give it to homeless people, snort coke off it. Just make sure you look really thin while you’re doing it.”