"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 little I get of the love that 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 bucks
It's a four cent nickel for my dime store thief
But it sure reads good

And If I could make it work in life
(Make it work in life)
Like it works on paper
(Works on paper)
If the love that I describe
(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 on a pair of wings
And I would
(I would)
I would fly
(I would fly)
If I could only make it work in life

And at the end of every night I add up the tips
That account for what might not come down to a thing
That amounts to a life and the sum of it all
I'm afraid is less than what I know
I need to slip beneath the surface of my forgeries
Where I buried my hopes with sometimes my dreams
Still stir me and steal me away
And I can still hear Dineh Bikeyah call
Just like when we were kids
And I could tell you all about it in a song
But Lord I wish that

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