The Revolutionary Costume for Today

Oh, hi. Thank heaven you're here
 You look absolutely terrific, honestly
 Mother wanted me to come out in a kimono
 So we had quite a fight
 The best kind of clothes for a protest pose
 Is this ensemble of pantyhose
 Pulled over the shorts, worn under the skirt
 That doubles as a cape
 To reveal you in capri pants
 You fashion out of ski pants
 In a jersey knit designed to fit
 The contour of your shape
 Then cinch it with a cord from the drape
 And that's the revolutionary costume for today
 To show the polo riders, in khakis and topsiders
 Just what a revolutionary costume has to say
 It can't be ordered from L.L. Bean
 There's more to living than kelly green
 And that's the revolution, I mean
 Da da da da dum
 Just listen to this: The Hamptons Bee, July, 1972
 "The elderly bed-ridden aunt of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy
 Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale"
 My very own mother, can you imagine?
 "...and her adult daughter, Miss Edie Beale
 A former debutante once known as Body Beautiful Beale"
 They called me Body Beautiul Beale, it's true
 That was my whaddyacallit, my uh, sobriquet
 "...are living on Long Island in a garbage-ridden
 Filthy twenty-eight-room house with fifty-two cats
 Fleas, cobwebs, and virtually no plumbing
 After vociferous complaints from neighbors
 The Board of Health took legal action against the reclusive pair
 Why, it's the most disgusting, atrocious thing
 Ever to happen in America!"
 You fight City Hall with a Persian shawl
 That used to hang on the bedroom wall
 Pinned under the chin, adorned with a pin
 And pulled into a twist
 Reinvent the objet trouve
 Make a poncho from a duvet
 Then you can be with cousin Lee
 On Mr. Blackwell's list
 The full-length velvet glove hides the fist
 And that's the revolutionary costume for today
 Subvert the CrisCraft boaters, those Nixon-Agnew voters
 Armies of conformity are headed right your way
 To make a statement you need not be
 In Boston Harbor upending tea
 And that's a revolution, to me
 Staunch!
 There's nothin' worse, I tell ya
 Staunch!
 S-T-A-U-N-C-H
 Staunch women, we just don't weaken
 A little known fact to the fascist pack
 Who comes here for antiquin'
 Da da da da dum
 Honestly, they can get you in East Hampton
 For wearing red shoes on a Thursday
 And all that sort of thing
 I don't know whether you know that
 I mean, do you know that?
 They can get you for almost anything
 It's a mean, nasty, Republican town
 The best kind of shoes to express bold views
 Are strapless mules in assertive hues
 Like fuscia or peach, except on the beach
 In which case you wear flats
 When I stood before the nation
 At Jack's inauguration
 In a high-heeled pump, I got the jump
 On Jackie's pillbox hats
 Just watch it where you step with the cats!
 And that's the revolutionary costume pour du jour
 You mix 'n' match and, presto!
 A fashion manifesto
 That's why a revolutionary costume's de rigeur
 The rhododendrons are hiding spies
 The pussy willows have beady eyes
 Binoculars through the privet hedge
 They peek at you through the window ledge with guile!
 We're in a Revolution!
 So win the Revolution with style!
 Da da da da dum