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