Here’s to the long-lost world of chain-smoking dreamers, war and baseball heroes, ticker tape and streamers, cocktail drinkers and Bible believers,
When light was still filling up a New York river.
They knew the grace of tradition,
Possessed a love of decorum,
They shook the hand of conviction,
Few complained then of boredom.
When everyone wore hats they dreamed of ocean voyages, believed in true romance, found their hearts and voices.
Here’s to the long lost hopes of those mothers and fathers, of rags to riches, of style and manners,
The American dream in a pledge to honour,
Promises made to their sons and daughters.
Threw off the chains of depression,
Built up the arms of aggression,
Left us a mixed impression,
Some died before they learned their lesson.
When everyone wore hats in the land of immigrants and pilgrims,
The world came rolling off their backs, landed on their children’s.
They knew the grace of tradition,
Possessed a love of decorum,
They shook the hand of conviction,
And few complained then of boredom.
When everyone wore hats and innocence found simple pleasures, they built the cities, drew the maps with keys to find their buried treasures,
When everyone wore hats and handed down their pride and prejudice,
They dropped good fortune in our laps,
We traded it for vice and avarice.
When everyone wore hats,
Would-be kings with ragged crowns,
They say the style is coming back,
What’s out-of-fashion comes around,
And everyone wore hats.
Uncertain where the road was leading, but trusting God was on their side,
They traced the moral chain of being and filmed it all in black and white.
And everyone wore hats,
And everyone wore hats,
And everyone wore hats,
Everyone wore hats.
