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 c