Album: Grey Gardens - A New Musical Soundtrack

The Revolutionary Costume for Today

[Edie](spoken)
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.

(sung)
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...

(spoken)
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 sobriquet - "...are living on Long Island in a garbage-ridden, filthy, 28-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!

(sung)
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 Mister Blackwell's list.
The full-length velvet glove
Hides the fist.
And that's "The Revolutionary Costume" for today.
Subvert the Cris-Craft 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 antique-in'.
Da-da-da-da-dum...

(spoken)
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.

(sung)
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 hump
I got the jump
On Jackie's pillbox hat...
Just watch it where you step
With the cats...!
And that's "The Revolutionary Costume" pour du jour.
Ya' mix, ya' 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 the revolution,
So win the revolution
With style!
Da-da-da-da-da.