Andrew Lloyd Webber: Eva's Sonnet/Your Little Body Is Breaking Down

'''Peron'''
Dice are rolling, the knives are out.
Would-be presidents are all around,
I don't say they mean harm
But they'd each give an arm
To see us six feet underground.

'''Eva'''
But we still have the magic we've always had.
The descamisados still worship me.
We arrive thanks to them and no one else.
No thanks to your generals: a clutch of stuffed cuckoos!

'''Peron'''
It's not a question of a big parade,
Proving we're big with the mobs on the street.
Our problems are closer than that:
They're along the corridor.

'''Eva'''
You're wrong! The people! My people!

'''Peron'''
The people belong to no one.
The are fickle, can be manipulated.
Controllable, changeable.
In the end the people don't matter.
However much they love you now,
it matters more that as far as my stuffed cuckoos are concerned,
you don't officially or politically exist.

'''Eva'''
So I don't exist!
So I count for nothing!
Try saying that on the street,
when all over the world I am Argentina.
Most of your generals wouldn't be recognized
by their own mothers.
But they'll admit I exist when I become vice president.

'''Peron'''
That won't work; we've been through all of this before.
They'd fight any attempt to make you vice president tooth and nail!
You'd never overcome that sort of opposition
with a hundred rallies...

and even if you did...

'''Eva'''
Yes?

'''Peron'''
Your little body's slowly breaking down.
Your losing speed, your losing strength - not style -
that goes on flourishing forever,
but your eyes, your smile
do not have the sparkle of your fantastic past.
If you climb one more mountain, it could be your last.

'''Eva'''
I'm not that ill.
Bad moments come, but they go. Some days are fine, some a little bit harder.
But I'm no has-been - it's the same old routine.
Have you ever seen me defeated?
Don't you forget what I've been through and yet
I'm still standing.

And if I am ill, it could even be to your advantage!

'''Peron'''
This is not a case of a sympathetic word
in the gossip column because you've got a cold.
I'm trying to point out that you might die.

This talk of death is chilling, an assault
upon ourselves and it will be our fault
If we allow these morbid, septic thoughts
to rule us now, to bring our reason clattering to a halt.

I do not need a final sacrifice,
just let me know of any sane device
to shift your strength, your undisputed powers
to places where your mighty deeds, your golden words
have not so far cut too much ice.

'''Eva'''
Then I must now be vice-president!

Those shallow, mean pretenders to your throne
will come to learn ours is the upper hand.
For I do not accept this is not known
In rich, established parcels of our land.
To face the storm so long and not capsize
Is not the chance achievement of a fraud.
Conservatives are kings of compromise;
It hurts them more to jeer than to applaud!

And I shall have my people come to choose
The couple who shall wear their country's crowns,
In thousands in my squares and avenues,
Emptying their villages and towns,
Where every soul in home or shack or stall
Knows me as Argentina - that is all.

Oh I shall be a great vice-president!
This is not a gambler's final throw
Forced upon me by those bastards who've
Only longed to see me up and go
It's not an unprepared or panicked move
Which just goes to prove
I'd be good for you
Eva, vice-president, is good for you.