Don't Cry for Me Argentina Meaning and Significance

01The verdicts

01 The song is a speech Eva Perón really gave ✕Doesn't hold up It is Tim Rice's lyric for the musical Evita.

02 It was written for Madonna ✕Doesn't hold up It is twenty years older than her version.

03 It comes from the musical Evita ✓Holds up Words by Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

04 It was a UK number one ✓Holds up Julie Covington's single topped the UK chart dated 12 February 1977, for one week.

05 In the show, Eva sings it from the Casa Rosada balcony ✓Holds up Yes, after Perón's 1946 election.

06 Eva Perón was president of Argentina ✕Doesn't hold up She was First Lady from 1946 until her death in 1952.

07 She turned down the vice-presidency from the balcony ✕Doesn't hold up Her formal refusal was a radio speech, on 31 August 1951.

08 Argentines dislike the song ◐Partly The anger on record is about the show and the film, not the tune.

02What the song means

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” is a song from the musical Evita, with words by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. In the show, Eva Perón sings it from a balcony to a crowd of thousands. She tells them she once wanted fame and glory, and is now focused on her people.

So how sincere is she? The show leaves room to wonder. A narrator called Che looks on, unimpressed, and comments throughout.

One critic wrote that Lloyd Webber’s score flatters her legend while Rice’s lyrics “undercut her with reality”.

One way to read the song, then: it sounds like a heartfelt promise, inside a story that keeps asking whether the performance is the person. We suspect that double meaning is part of why it has lasted.

03Where the song comes from

Tim Rice heard a radio programme about Eva Perón’s life in 1973 and wanted to know more, according to Lloyd Webber’s company. The pair wrote Evita in 1975. It came out first as a concept album in November 1976, with Julie Covington singing Eva.

• The single: Covington’s recording reached No. 1 on the UK singles chart dated 12 February 1977, and spent one week there.
• London: the stage show opened at the Prince Edward Theatre on 21 June 1978, with Elaine Paige as Eva.
• Broadway: it opened at the Broadway Theatre on 25 September 1979, with Patti LuPone as Eva.
• The film: Alan Parker’s 1996 film starred Madonna as Eva, with Antonio Banderas. Her recording of the song reached No. 3 in the UK, first charting on 28 December 1996.

The song still finds new audiences. In a 2025 London revival, it was sung from the London Palladium’s outside balcony to a crowd in the street below.

The words went through drafts. Rice wrote in his 1999 memoir that Covington first recorded the song with a different first line for the chorus. The title phrase was a lyricist’s choice.

04Did Eva Perón ever say it?

We found no record that she did. The line is Rice’s lyric, and the song is not a version of any speech.

What she did say in 1951 was different. On 31 August 1951 she spoke on the radio to decline the candidacy for vice-president. Workers had urged it on her at a gathering called the Cabildo Abierto (“open town council”) on 22 August.

We read that speech in English and Spanish, and her 17 October 1951 speech in English. None of them contains anything like the song’s title line.

The mix-up is easy to make. The musical gives her a balcony and a crowd, and the real Eva did address crowds from a balcony. The song borrows the setting, not her words.

05Who was Eva Perón?

Eva Perón, widely known as Evita, was born María Eva Duarte in Los Toldos, Argentina, on 7 May 1919. She moved to Buenos Aires as a teenager to become an actress: at 15 in one account, at 16 in another. She found work in radio and film before she met Colonel Juan Perón.

They married on 21 October 1945. He won the presidential election of February 1946, and she was First Lady from 1946 until her death in 1952.

• Votes for women: women’s suffrage became law in 1947, and women voted in a national election for the first time on 11 November 1951. One encyclopedia credits the law “largely to her efforts”.
• Her foundation: it handed out food, clothing, medicine and money to people in need. Sources differ on when it began: the same encyclopedia says June 1947, while Entre Ríos province’s culture department dates it to 19 June 1948, formally recognised by decree on 8 July 1948. The encyclopedia says its funds came from contributions “often obtained with force”.
• Her title: shortly before she died, Congress gave her the title “Spiritual Leader of the Nation”.

She died of cancer on 26 July 1952, aged 33, and was given a state funeral.

06Was Eva Perón president?

No. Her husband, Juan Perón, was the president. He governed from 1946 until a military takeover removed him in September 1955, and again from 1973 until his death on 1 July 1974.

Eva never held elected office. In 1951 she was put forward for vice-president, with strong support from the main labour federation. She withdrew because of poor health and opposition from the military and from upper-class Argentines.

If a search turns up a woman called President Perón, that is someone else. Isabel Perón, Juan Perón’s wife from 1961, became his vice-president in 1973 and succeeded him as president in 1974.

07The balcony, on stage and in real life

In the musical, Eva sings the song from the balcony of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, after Perón’s 1946 election. The 1996 film shot its version of the scene at the Casa Rosada itself.

The real Eva did speak from that balcony. Her last speech, on 1 May 1952, was given from the Casa Rosada’s balcony to a crowd marking Workers’ Day.

Her refusal of the vice-presidency was different: it came over the radio, not from a balcony. Some accounts date it to the Cabildo Abierto of 22 August 1951; the radio speech itself was on 31 August.

On stage	Eva sings the song from the Casa Rosada balcony after Perón’s 1946 election
Her last speech	Given from the Casa Rosada’s balcony on 1 May 1952
Her refusal	Over the radio, on 31 August, not from a balcony

The first item is the musical; the other two are the historical record.

08How Argentina has received the song and the show

Reactions have been strong, and mostly about the show’s picture of Eva rather than the tune. A 1995 news report said the musical’s portrayal “angered many Argentines who still consider her nothing less than a saint”. The same report said the show was banned in Buenos Aires.

The film met the same feelings. A 1997 review reported that both Madonna’s casting and the unflattering portrait of the Peróns had “angered Argentines before the film was completed”.

Argentina has also told the story its own way:

• Eva, el gran musical argentino, a homegrown stage musical, opened at the Teatro Maipo in 1986.
• Eva Perón, an Argentine film directed by Juan Carlos Desanzo, came out in 1996, the same year as the Hollywood film.

We found no survey of how Argentines feel about the song itself. So “do Argentines dislike it?” has no single answer. The record shows anger at the show and the film, not a verdict on the melody.

09Saint, militant, or “woman with the whip”?

How to judge Eva Perón is a question of values, and people still disagree. Her supporters have raised her to a kind of popular sainthood, as the champion of the poor. In her lifetime she met considerable opposition from the upper class, to whom her humble background and earlier activities were unacceptable, and from the military.

One encyclopedia records a harder side too. It says she used her influence to hire and fire ministers and top officials of the main labour federation, and that her foundation’s contributions were “often obtained with force”.

Scholars describe several competing images of her: the saint, the militant, and “the woman with the whip” (our translation). The same entry sums it up: there is still “considerable difference of opinion” about her real role. We leave the judgement to you.

The musical adds one more image. It is a British show, and it can be read as half admiring and half satirical, as that critic suggested: the music flatters, the lyrics undercut.

10How to tell a musical’s version from the record

This is our own rule of thumb, not a rule from any source.

• Check the credits. If a famous line is in a song, look up who wrote the words. Here it is Tim Rice, not Eva Perón.
• Look for the real speech. Archives publish dated texts of many political speeches. Texts of her 1951 speeches are online, in English and in Spanish.
• Notice the narrator. A show with a doubting guide, like Che, is inviting you to doubt what you see.
• Watch the calendar. Stage stories move events around. The balcony song follows the 1946 election; her real refusal of the vice-presidency came by radio in 1951.
• Ask how the country tells it. Argentina has its own stage musical and its own film about her, and they make different choices.

How we checked this · Last checked October 2026

• Eva Perón's radio speech of 31 August 1951 was read in English and Spanish, and her speech of 17 October 1951 in English.
• Tim Rice's memoir and Michael Walsh's book on Lloyd Webber were read through Open Library's search inside the scanned books.

Checked October 2026.

How we check every article →

11Sources