Paper Hatted Greatness

I want to be a boy in a paper hat

walking school halls like a sailor 

all dressed up in newspaper

disregarding the haters

making that shy new kid smile

I want to be an eighty year old lady

coasting car lots in my buggy

like I'm Jasmine on a magic

carpet ride

yeah just lookit them smilin'

I want to be that timid beauty

taking time off from her duties 

playing piano for old folks 

even though she is truly

shy 

just to make those people smile

I want to be some full-out hippie

perhaps just a little bit ditsy 

with a flowered up van and a disarming grin

which despite all that better judgment 

makes the people observing just smile

I want to be a young guy 

dancing it out in the mall like

it's all I have left but I'll give

it my all yeah see me twirl

just to make bored dads 

and boyfriends with girls' bags smile

I want to be a boy in a paper hat

or a girl in a Mardi Gras mask

or a dude drawing chalk on a sidewalk

doing the things that I most love 

not caring which people are watching

just hoping I might help them smile

Because, come on bae, let's just face it

not all of us have guts to embrace it

the urge to do cray cray neat stuff

so we live for those moments of greatness

going on hard all around us 

yeah we're living through second-hand braveness

hoping that they'll make us smile.