The People That You Never Get To Love

(album: Partners In Crime - 1979)

You're browsing through a second hand bookstore
And you see her in non-fiction V through Y
She looks up from World War II
And then you catch her, catching, you catching her eye

And you quickly turn away your wishful stare
And take a sudden interest in your shoes
If you only had the courage but you don't
She turns and leaves and you both lose

And you think about
The people that you never get to love
It's not as if you even have the chance
So many worth a second life
But rarely do you get a second glance
Until fate cuts in on your dance

And you'll see her on a train that you've just missed
At a bus stop where your bus will never stop
Or in a passing Buick
When you've been pulled over by a traffic cop

Or you'll share an elevator, just you two
And you'll rise in total silence to the floor
Like the fool you are, you get off
And she leaves your life behind a closing door

And you think about
The people that you never get to love
The poem you intended to begin
The saddest words that anyone has ever said are
'Lord, what might have been'
But no one said you get to win

Still you're never gonna miss what you don't know
And you don't know who you'll meet at half past three
It could be a total stranger
Who looks something just exactly much like me

One of the people that you never get to love
One of the people that you never get to love
The people that you never get to love