For Evelyne
[Verse 1]
I was headed to the fifth floor
Just a deliveryman
A crate of photographic film
Grown heavy in my hands
She swore “You drop those canisters
I’ll surely have your head
The Rollei is a fickle beast
The film so hard to thread”
Hard to thread
The way she said it, I believed her

[Chorus]
Oh Evelyne
Do you see your dreams
Through the eyepiece of a
Rolleiflex 4 by 4?
No man can compete
Or hold the perfect posе
The way you need
Forever now, forеver more
For Evelyne
[Verse 2]
Dodging Sinn Fein bullets
Or the Battle of Ballantyne
When insurrection needs a photo
That’s where you’ll find Evelyne
The telephone would chatter
Just as we were settling down
It’s the Telegraph Gazette
She’s needed out of town
Out of town
She was only half here anyway

[Chorus]
Oh Evelyne
All your dreams
In a bakelite box
With a bellows and a reflex lens
Was I ever in the frame?
I guess that all depends
On what that means
Forever now, forever more
For Evelyne

[Verse 3]
So you married a well-heeled barrister
From up ‘round Sussex town
But no proper gent would ever stand
For all that running around
So you gave him a lovely daughter
And a couple of handsome sons
You saved a gilded ball and chain
For yourself when it all was done
[Verse 4]
And the Rolleiflex is collecting dust
Up on the second floor
The bellows cracked
The lens is chipped
The film no good no more
No more good
Covered with an old bedspread
Oh Evelyne

[Verse 5]
Didn’t I read the headline
In the Telegraph Gazette?
They found your smiling baby daughter
Giggling and soaking wet
She’d wandered off for two days
With her Brownie in the pouring rain
And all your world was frantic
For her safe return again
Save for you
So strangely understanding

[Chorus]
Oh Evelyne
Do you dream your dreams
In a red-lit darkroom
Where the rest of the world can’t see?
Children at your knees
And still you feel the chill of incomplete
Forever now, forever more
For Evelyne
Forever now, forever more
For Evelyne