There's a light out on the freeway says, "It's time to go"   I'm wasting my time counting stains on a barroom floor   Thinking 'bout my hometown and the friends I'll leave behind   Mostly 'bout the man who writes his songs with smiling rhymes   And I'm holding on to a smoky view of his dreams in the midnight light      Michael counts his songs in the years of wasted miles   I used to think he was really part of that fantasy in rhyme   Looking back on all his tunes of butterflies and sunshine   There was only one about the man he kept inside   About the time he crossed the line and let a tear come to his eye      I used to hide out in his pretty smile   Hope it would shine me through the morrow   Until I learned the way it feels to be the man   Who sings the world a smile   Without a soul to share his sorrow      The light here at the freeway, well, it's turning green to gold   The stains on that barroom floor, ten miles back down the road   Thinking 'bout how that old bar brought Michael back to mind   How I can sing his blues and be smiling here inside   I guess a weary soul will always sing, Michael's smiling rhymes      I used to hide out in his pretty smile   Hope it would shine me through the morrow   Until I learned the way it feels to be the man   Who sings the world a smile   Without a soul to share his sorrow