If I Could Make It Work In Life Lyrics

If I Could Make It Work In Life lyrics

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