Like It's Already Been Said

I'm just going to lay it down again
for all you cats and kittens who missed the first run
and a bunch of you who weren't even tuned in yet
So from the top
Dig is to perceive a situation and hopefully enjoy it
Hip is advanced understanding and tastes
Cool is keeping your composure while doing good
and having fun with hipness
Put that combo together and you are
Beatifific which is exalted happiness for the higher values in life
Not to be confused with the media hype type
like Citizen Cain of the Chronicle
who put down the beatniks*

Off-beat is hip if you are cool
Square ain't hip or cool
and neither is punk
but we all go through those phases
you got to rise above the funk
Evolution is hip
and you better be hip to evolution
because it is a be-boppin on down the line
with you or without you
and you and Einstein can say
that's all relative
and there are separate internal and external realities
but dig it
we are plowing on a primitive planet
with primate politics which put pressure
on the having fun part of cool

If you don't know what Square is
take a look around
Disneyland without the mushrooms
and Mickey the Mouse still wins elections
Change is happening fast and slow
Cool is digging and adapting to the cosmic flow
But getting centered in your own thing is hip
Your Thing is your calling, your vocation
your unique individual number one trip
Square is being a slave and not knowing it
or knowing it and not doing anything about it
Like there are some groups that don't even dance
they get loaded on Old-time Schizophrenia
then they go out and bust you for your own good
and claim they dig the hippest cat
that ever soft-shoed on the stage of history
Cool is punching up some positive programs
on the computer disk of destiny
Hip is turning on to and with
the sisters and brothers of the Big Mother, Earth
Like the Family has got to come together
if we are going to make it through this winter
of nuclear snow storms
Banning the Bomb was a big theme of the early Beats
and it still is
and we still got to deal with petty stuff
like greed and prejudiced people
You could say we are treading in a paleozoic swamp
compared to the botanical garden of possibilities
The future of tomorrow
Is in the heads of today!
Heads are hip if they can stay cool
while getting messed with all the time
but like it's already been said.

* Columnist Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle coined
the word "Beatnik" after one of the Beats protested Sputnik,
associating the modern bohemians with the "Commies."