"Buenos Aires" Lyric Question

I'm confused as to significance and/or meaning of the Spanish lyrics in "Buenos Aires" ("Rio de la Plata, Florida, Corrientes, Nueve de Julio")

Roughly translated, it reads "Silver River, Florida, Currents, July 9th"...Unless I'm missing some historical context, it seems to be random Spanish phrases.

Help!

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Rio de la Plata -- just to add to Smaxie's description, the respective capitals of Montevideo and Buenos Aires are major ports

Florida -- an elegant shopping street akin to, say, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills or Fifth Avenue in Manhattan

Corrientes -- the Broadway of Buenos Aires; incidentally, Luna Park, the arena where Eva first met Peron, is on here

Nueve de Julio -- avenue named in honor of Argentina's independence from Spain (July 9, 1916); it intersects with Corrientes

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Updated On: 2/11/12 at 11:17 AM

Avenida Nueve de Julio is named for Argentina's Independence Day.

I'm always perplexed when she starts singing about eiderdown.

You should be confused as to why they call Buenos Aires "Big Apple". It was Tim Rice having fun with the lyric, but it makes no sense.

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That Big Apple lyric is one of my most annoying examples of Rice being "clever" at his worst. I know many hate the Argentina lyric "Dressed up to the nines, at sixes and sevens with you", but that works well enough for me as it seems to show how well thought out and manipulative Eva's speech is. But that wqhole Big Apple nonsense is just, well nonsense. Nobody besides Rice, has ever called Buenos Aires the Big Apple to the best of my knowledge--add to that that to a first listener the lines "I want to be a, part of B A, Buenos Aires, Big Apple" is downright incomprehensible. (I don't know many people who would pronounce "be *a*" that way either when using it with as in "be a part" but that's just a quibble).

I admit I sorta tune out the lyrics when she starts rattling off the street names, etc--I do love the song, but... (I hope they change the oddly static tango staging they used for the revival in London).

I admit though I kinda love Hershy Kay's use of the mariachi trumpets at the point My Oh My mentions--they sound oddly slightly melancholy to me--but yes they don't make much sense.

(And now thanks to you I have visions of Charo playing Eva... EVen if she isn't Mexican or Argentinian it would be brilliant)

That's a good description of them--I dunno why I said melancholy butI guess I do get a sense of that as well.

I knew the concepty album by heart as a kid before hearing any other version (it was the only version my library had), so I admit Kay (I assume it was his contribution) adding the strong latin dance beat to Buenos Aires threw me off for a long time, though I love it equally now. Of course the film largely dropped all of that and went closer to the concept.

Heven forbid--on this forum??

I love the mariachi trumpets, too. I've always thought it was an acting beat change - she gets a little dreamy on the "Eiderdown" section but then is swept back up into everything a moment later, as though the city's energy can't help but lift her along.

Of course, the whole thing was directly lifted from an old Rice/Webber pop song called "Down Thru' Summer". I've linked it below if you haven't heard it. Interesting to hear how the tune evolved.
"Down Thru' Summer"

The streets she rattles off at the end of the song also happen to be the most exclusive areas of Buenos Aires (Florida, in particular) (or at least they were at the time) and I always thought that she wanted to see them because of this.

For the record I was joking with my Charo comment--Wiki claims ALW briefly wanted her for the movie in the 70s... Wow.

This is funny: I've always understood "Stand back, Buenos Aires" as
"Samba! Buenos Aires". I thought it was a big Tim Rice mistake since Samba is not from Argentina but from Brazil. I am sorry Mr. Rice!

My parents lived in Buenos Aires in the early 90s and I had the opportunity to visit. I did the whole "Evita" thing visiting the places mentioned in this particular song as well as seeing her family tomb (flowers were still being placed there daily) and the Casa Rosada. Cheesey touristy stuff I know, but I loved the musical and I was very curious to investigate more on the subject. Incidentally, my parents lived in the posh Recoleta district of Buenos Aires (a penthouse supplied by my father's company) and from their balcony, they would wave to Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith as they ate breakfast every morning from their penthouse balcony in the hotel across the street.

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