DRESSING UP FOR THE PART

Style is very important. It always is for people who come from nothing.  The more outrageous the better – it’s a way of sweetly telling the world “screw you.”  I may not have much, I may have gotten these rags from the dumpster – but look what I did:  I created something.  I invented this look, this outfit.  Therefore, I matter.

Everybody knows the peacock with the brightest feathers
Is the male
Don’t let it get stale
Shake that tail
He shakes that tale
Just for a start

Dressing up for the part
What am I gonna be tonight
Fly myself up like a kite
Dressing up is a lot of fun
Dressing up just for a kick
Who am I, just take your pick

Her father was a doctor, mine was a janitor.  We rented a house that was falling down around us on the Italian north side, her family owned a brick mansion on the wasp-y suburban side, it took me 90 minutes to hitchhike to it.  I was always the class clown, the prankster, the no-good son an alcoholic janitor.  I first met her at the Sports-o-Rama roller skating rink. She was tall, blond, breathtaking.  Very nonchalantly I asked her to skate.  It was “couples-only.”  They turned down the lights.  Rose Royce singing, “I Want to Get Next to You.” Small talk while we skated round and round in circles, 95 miles an hour. I was nervous.  I yelled out, Your hair! It’s – blowing back like in a wind machine. For a shampoo commercial!  Somehow, she was smiling. Somehow, we went and drank soda. Somehow, we were kissing, groping, touching, for what seemed like hours and hours and hours.  I was 16 and I saw the face of God.  Finally her friends were leaving, she had to go.   She whispered, Take good care of those.  I said, Those what?  Those blue things between your legs.  Right then and there I asked her to go with me to the prom.

Big night ahead of me in my lime green tuxedo
It was machine washableIt was machine washable
She pinned on my corsage
Just for a start

Dressing up for the part
You can tell me I’m unique
You can tell me I’m a freak
Dress up different, every day
I gotta do it my own way
I don’t care what people say

To you I was funny and a little bit disarming
To me you were cute and little bit charming
You never knew I was the one who crashed a car into a telephone pole
You never knew I was a loner, never knew about my loser role
Because I gave myself a brand new start
When I started dressing up for a brand new part

Dressing up for the part
What am I gonna be today? Hero in a Broadway play
Standing ovation, take a bow
All because I got dressed up, all because you showed me how