"Another Suitcase in Another Hall" is one of my all-time favorite songs from a musical, although in the original version it's sung, not by Eva, but by Juan Peron's sixteen-year-old mistress after Eva kicks her out.

Not his last job ever, either. He did the lydrics for Chess, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat with ALW (pre-Evita), and The Lion King w/ Elton John.

Even some of the more recent ones like CHICAGO and MOULIN ROUGE are better than that. One of my all time favorites, WEST SIDE STORY makes EVITA look like it was done by 2nd graders.

But the worst part of your post is, that your instructor thought that EVITA was a good example for teaching South American History. I would have to call that a cop-out. That to me is just poor planning on the instuctors part. It is a sad thing when they have to use a musical as a teaching aide. I could maybe see it in a Humanities class, but not History.

I thought Moulin Rouge was so appallingly bad that I couldn't watch more than the first fifteen minutes. (And if we're talking about lyrics, from what I understand it had no original songs.) But some people thought it was worthy of an Oscar for Best Picture.

I enjoyed Chicago: I thought it was a lot of fun. I even bought the soundtrack.

I love Singing in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Les Miserables, The Music Man, The Phantom of the Opera, White Christmas and more.

But I have to say that in my opinion, only Les Miserables has more meaningful, serious lyrics than Evita. (There are a lot of musicals that have lyrics that are more fun.)

By the way, TruHero, it wasn't shown as an accurate example of South American history. We were told not to focus on the whether it was historically accurate or not, at least in the specifics, and just focus on the over-arching themes that are shown in the movie. (Interclass relations, political movements, etc.) This is a reason, not an excuse. There is no excuse for making me watch that movie.

I must admit that the musicals I referenced where fun, and Moulin Rouge did use existing songs, but the twists they used on those songs were entertaining. Neither Chicago or Moulin Rouge are on my list of favorites. I was just referring to more current work.

I realize that everyone has different tastes so I will add "in my opinion" to my previous post.

Now on to one or two of the musicals that EJS mentioned. You threw out some that are definately on my all time favorite list. Fiddler, Sound of Music, Les Mis., King and I. All of these have a basis in serious historical reference.

Let's take Fiddler for instance. Set during the Russian revolution, showing a family, no, a whole villiage being torn apart by change and violence. They were all lucky they weren't killed, and just let go. The songs and lyrics in that musical meant more to me almost than any other. I got a clearer picture from Fiddler about the hardships, love, and laughter they experienced, than Evita. It is hard for me to even make a comparison.

I saw Fiddler when I was around eight years old for that first time, along with West Side Story. I have the DVD's and soundtracks for both and can belt out any of the songs from either. I couldn't even begin to do that with Evita, except for the "Don't cry for me" song. Which in itself eclipses the whole production. I guess that Evita isn't as "full" as some of the others that we've mentioned.

I have seen and done scenery for most of the Musicals on your list, and others, Mr. Roberts, Carousel, Annie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Hound of the Baskervilles, Scrooge, My Fair Lady, Annie Get Your Gun and on and on. My Dad is a scenic artist and I used to be his helper at various theaters and Movie sets.

I usually think that lyrics should be, well...lyrical.

And of course, I can't stand Evita Peron or Madonna....

Look, my point is that Eric is right. These sorts of judgements vary from person to person, and even the issue of whether 'powerful' lyrics have to be strictly lyric is very much open to debate over form and formalism and all kinds of stupid arty stuff. I personally think that anyone that liked Evita got suckered one way or another (most likely several ways).

But I would hesitate to say that this is because the lyrics violate conventional expectations of rhyme and rhythm. After all, just as dissonnance is a potentially powerful musical tool, so also can similar violations of meter and euphony render a song memorible and emotionally powerful (particularly songs that are supposed to convey about anger or despair--I understand that there's supposed to be a hell of a lot of both in Evita).

Ultimately, some people like it for the very reasons that you hated it...and affective use of breaking meter and melody (which is what you're talking about) is a legitimate reason to like a song (even for people who find the concept of Madonna as Eva Peron almost too apt).

However, I do take the set design thing seriously, and I am not ashamed. That was my Fathers profession. We (my Dad and I) designed and painted scenery for all of those musicals and plays for local theaters like Hale, Promised Valley, Pioneer and Capitol. Not Broadway, but the biggies for SLC. We did a few movies and TV episodes as well.

I did add the disclaimer earlier that this was "my opinion", but possibly an educated one.

Survivor, here you are defending something you hate. Are you showing your chivalrous tendancies again?

As far as the taste comment goes, you don't need to make any excuses!

Troy: [singing] I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me

Oh my G--, I was wrong
It was Earth all along

You've finally made a monkey
Apes: Yes, we've finally made a monkey
Troy: Yes, you've finally made a monkey out of me
Apes: Yes, we've finally made a monkey out of you

Troy: I love you, Dr. Zaius!