Venice Beach is poppin'
Like live shrimp dropped on a hot wok
Hucksters, hustlers and hawkers
Set up their boardwalk shops
Home for all the homeless, hopeless, well heeled, and deranged
Still, nothing here seems out of place or strange.
There's an old smudge of a Beatnik by the bay
Lookin' like a dog who's had his day
Like a dream, he drifts away
He'd like to go out on the Pier to hear the reedy carousel
It's got a melody that sets you free, and says
Let's sit a spell, just to hear the heartbeat in L. A.