Waltz for Eva and Che Lyrics
Waltz for Eva and Che
[Che:]Tell me before I waltz out of your life
Before turning my back on the past
Forgive my impertinent behavior
But how long do you think this pantomime can last?
Tell me before I ride off in the sunset
There's one thing I never got clear
How can you claim you're our savior
When those who oppose you are stepped on,
Or cut up, or simply disappear?
[Eva:]
Tell me before you get onto your bus
Before joining the forgotten brigade
How can one person like me, say,
Alter the time-honored way the game is played?
Tell me before you get onto your high horse
Just what you expect me to do
I don't care what the bourgeoisie say
I'm not in business for them
But to give all my descamisados
A magical moment or two
[Che and Eva:]
There is evil, ever around
Fundamental system of government
Quite incidental
[Eva:]
So what are my chances of honest advances?
I'd say low
Better to win by admitting my sin
Than to lose with a halo
[Che:]
Tell me before I seek worthier pastures
And thereby restore self-esteem
How can you be so short-sighted
To look never further than this week or next week
To have no impossible dream?
[Eva:]
Allow me to help you slink off to the sidelines
And mark your adieu with three cheers
But first tell me who'd be delighted
If I said I'd take on the world's greatest problems
From war to pollution, no hope of solution
Even if I lived for one hundred years
[Che and Eva:]
There is evil, ever around
Fundamental system of government
Quite incidental
[Eva:]
So go, if you're able, to somewhere unstable
And stay there
Whip up your hate in some tottering state
But not here, dear
Is that clear, dear?
Oh what I'd give for a hundred years
But the physical interferes
Every day more, O my Creator
What is the good of the strongest heart
In a body that's falling apart?
A serious flaw, I hope You know that
Song Overview
Review and Highlights
I’ve always heard this scene as Evita’s conscience given choreography. The title says waltz, but what unfolds is political fencing in 3/4 time. Che circles with accusations, Eva counters with pragmatism and show-woman poise. The music turns on a Viennese lilt that keeps everything deceptively elegant while the lyrics pull no punches. That contradiction is the fun - and the sting.
Highlights - Key takeaways:
- Dance as debate - the triple meter almost romanticizes the clash, making the rhetoric feel inevitable, even seductive.
- Two strategies, two timbres - Che’s pointed patter vs. Eva’s ringing declarations; both weaponize clarity.
- A core thesis of the show - survival and symbolism aren’t opposites here; they’re dance partners.
Creation History
The number appeared on the 1976 studio concept album with Colm Wilkinson and Julie Covington, then re-entered the ring on the 1979 American Premiere Cast album with Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for MCA. The cast set was recorded in Los Angeles in July 1979 and remixed in London shortly after, lining up with the Broadway launch that autumn.
Song Meaning and Annotations
Plot
Che steps in as prosecutor, asking how a self-described savior can tolerate repression. Eva replies as a realist, arguing that the board was rigged long before she sat at the table. They volley questions and subclauses, then fold into a shared refrain that admits a darker truth about power. Finally, the mask slips: Eva confesses the failing she cannot outmaneuver - a body that’s losing the race against time.
Song Meaning
I read it as a reckoning wrapped in ritual. The waltz keeps order while the text admits disorder. Che wants accountability. Eva wants results. The message sits in their brief agreement: there is evil ever around - and systems make saints and sinners out of the same moves. Mood shifts from sardonic to fatalistic. In context, it’s the show’s mirror - not flattering, but honest about the cost of mythmaking.
Annotations
“Before joining the forgotten brigade”
Che frames Eva’s promises as noise, then paints his own path as nobler action. Eva flips the mirror - a lonely heroic death helps no one if the machine stays fed.
“There is evil - ever around, fundamental - system of government quite incidental”
On the original 1976 recording, Eva alone sings this refrain. Later stagings make it a duet, reading as rare consensus. That small change shifts the scene from lecture to uneasy pact.
“How can you be so short-sighted... To have no impossible dream?”
Che’s name isn’t an accident. He argues for history-scale thinking, the kind that outlives the speaker.
“The world’s greatest problems - from war to pollution - no hope of solution - even if I lived for one hundred years?”
Eva chooses triage over utopia. Her logic is hard-nosed: if the structure is corrupt, aim your energy where it changes a life today.
“So go if you’re able - to somewhere unstable - and stay there”
Some productions shade Che closer to Che Guevara. The lyric needles that revolutionary tourism can become its own performance.
“Tottering”
A single word that does double duty - comic snap in delivery, grim forecast in meaning.
“Oh, what I’d give for a hundred years”
The melody recalls earlier hopeful motifs, now curdled by diagnosis. The past tense comes for everyone, even protagonists.
“But the physical interferes”
The subtext is blunt: illness is rewriting her script.
“What is the good of the strongest heart... A serious flaw... I hope You know that”
The prayer lands softly. After all the ironies, she talks straight to God. Argentina’s Catholic backbone hums behind the line.
Style, production, and touchpoints
Tempo di valse with a theatre orchestra sheen. You hear Viennese sweep, tango-adjacent bite, and clean Broadway diction. It’s argument-as-dance, a trick borrowed from operetta and perfected by pop-operatic theatre of the 70s.
Key Facts
- Artist: Mandy Patinkin & Patti LuPone with the Original Broadway Cast
- Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Lyricist: Tim Rice
- Producer: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice
- Release Date: 1979
- Album: Evita (Original Cast Recording) - also issued as Evita: Premiere American Recording
- Label: MCA Records
- Length: 3:46
- Language: English
- Genre: Musical theatre, orchestral pop with Viennese-waltz feel
- Instruments: voices, strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, rhythm section
- Mood: combative, lucid, finally mortal
- Track #: 18 on most cast-album configurations
- Music style: 3/4 waltz framing a rhetorical duel
- Poetic meter: quick parlando for Che, lyrical phrases for Eva over steady triple pulse
Questions and Answers
- Who produced “Waltz for Eva and Che” by Mandy Patinkin & Patti LuPone?
- Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
- When did Mandy Patinkin & Patti LuPone release “Waltz for Eva and Che”?
- 1979, on the American Premiere Cast album.
- Who wrote “Waltz for Eva and Che”?
- Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice.
- Which earlier recording introduced the piece to listeners before Broadway?
- The 1976 concept album with Colm Wilkinson and Julie Covington.
- Where else can you hear the duet beyond the stage albums?
- On the 1996 film soundtrack, sung by Madonna and Antonio Banderas.
Awards and Chart Positions
This specific duet wasn’t a single, but its home production did the trophy hauling:
- Tony Awards 1980: Evita won Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book, Best Direction, Best Lighting, plus acting awards for Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.
- Grammy Awards 1981: the American Premiere Cast album took Best Cast Show Album.
- Screen legacy: the 1996 film soundtrack features the duet with Madonna and Antonio Banderas and became a global seller alongside the movie campaign.
Additional Info
- Lineage: Concept-album origins in 1976, then refined for the 1978 West End premiere and the 1979 Broadway cast album.
- Album session notes: Recorded in Los Angeles in July 1979 and remixed in London; issued by MCA in the US.
- Notable versions: Concept album (Julie Covington with Colm Wilkinson), Broadway album (LuPone with Patinkin), film soundtrack (Madonna with Antonio Banderas).
- Language adaptations: Czech cover “Val?ík” by Lucie Bílá with Petr Muk; Brazilian stagings and studio takes often retitled “Valsa para Eva e Che.”