We may not be wearing perfect shoes We may not know sophisticated moves We may not begin from a graceful stance But in the end we re going to start to dance We may be standing in a public place Careful clothing, proper public faces When the social situation says we can t Right about then, we re going to start to dance And the ghost of something gone Is going to try our bodies on And break a smile a mile wide When we dance to save our lives When we dance to save our lives Every limb long atrophied away Will be brought back from the dead that day Every ego, cool and in control, will suddenly be Doing the Tango, doing the Do-Si-Do After every remedy of an intellectual sort We will dance a desperate dance, a dance of last resort And it won t matter what kind of degrees we hold We ll be relying on what we do not know And the ghost of something gone Is going to try our bodies on And holler hey, it s about time When we dance to save our lives And the ghost of something gone Is going to try our bodies on Exclaiming hallelujah child! When we dance to save our lives When we dance to save our lives