I sit on a piano stool and I make up songs for these men who
come in with dust on their faces and mud on their boots
From these places that I'll never go.
I sleep in a rented bed with a woman who gives me
what lttle I get of the love we'd like to imagine is left
Of the love that we never did know
I slip out and scribble a note that reads like a million books
It's a four cent nickel for my dime store theme, but it sure reads good

If I could make it work in life
Like it works on paper
If the love that I describe
Could be anything but words
Then I would wipe my eyes
I'd dry this ink
I'd trade my pen in for a pair of wings
And I would fly
If only I could make it work in life

And at the end of every night I add up the tips and I count for what's mine
I come down to a thing that amounts to a lie
And the sum of it all I'm afraid
Is less then what I know I need
to slip beneath the surface of my forgeries
Where I buried my hopes where sometimes my dreams
Still stun me and steal me away.
I can still hear Dine Bikeyah call just like we were kids
I could tell you all about it in a song
But Lord I wish

If I could make it work in life
Like it works on paper
If the love that I describe
Could be anything but words
Then I would wipe my eyes
I'd dry this ink
I'd trade my pen in for a pair of wings
And I would fly
If only I could make it work in life, make it work in life