If I Could Make It Work

"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"