Another Suitcase in Another Hall

"Another Suitcase in Another Hall" is a song recorded by Scottish singer Barbara Dickson, for the 1976 concept album Evita, the basis of the musical of the same name. The musical was based on the life of Argentinian leader Eva Perón. Written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the song is presented during a sequence where Eva throws her husband's mistress out on the streets. The latter sings the track, wondering about her future and concluding that she would be fine. The songwriters enlisted Dickson to record the track after hearing her previous work.

Rice and Webber asked her to record the song using a higher than usual pitch, so that she sounded younger like her character. Featuring instrumentation of guitar, marimba, harp and keyboard, "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" finds Dickson singing in a soprano voice. Critically appreciated, the song was released as a single on 7 February 1977, and reached number 18 on the UK Singles Chart. Dickson did not like her recorded version of the track and employed a different arrangement during her future live renditions.

The song has been covered and performed many times by other artists, namely Elaine Paige, Marti Webb, Kimberley Walsh from British girl group Girls Aloud, and actress Samantha Barks. Another notable version was recorded by American singer Madonna, who played the part of Eva for the 1996 film adaptation of the musical. It was released on 3 March 1997, by Warner Bros. as the third and final single from the film's soundtrack. Unlike the musical, in the film the track was sung by Madonna's character instead of the mistress. Upon its release, the song garnered positive response from music critics and reached the top ten of the charts in Italy and the United Kingdom.

"Another Suitcase in Another Hall" was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice while they were developing the Evita concept album in 1976. Both were extremely intrigued by the stories surrounding the life of Eva Perón while researching her during the mid-1970s. They learned of her husband Juan Perón, and his affinity for young women, and Rice and Webber decided to use it as one of the backstories behind Eva and Juan's rise to power. The song is performed by the character of Juan's teenage mistress after she is "kicked out" by his future wife, Eva. According to director Michael Grandage, the story took the "edge off" a supposed fairy-tale-like interpretation of Eva and Juan, unveiling their ambitions and cutthroat personalities. From a production point of view, it also allowed Grandage to show ruthlessness of Eva, when Juan allows her to throw his "mistress" away. The girl is ultimately left on the streets with nowhere to go, and there she sings the song.

It is a particularly poignant melody that should play with an audience's emotions. The mistress clearly knew what she was doing sleeping with an older man, and yet there is something expletive about it as well. Eva's bitchiness should be enjoyed by an audience, but they should also be investing in the plight of a young girl's eviction. The narrative of this section is so well structured that it is obvious the journey of the mistress is complete by her exit. This allows the audience to invest in a single moment while also learning more about Eva and Perón's character as they move forward in the story.

The song was first recorded by singer Barbara Dickson in 1976 for the Evita concept album that eventually became the stage musical. Rice and Webber had already enlisted actress Julie Covington to sing the part of Eva, hence they were on the lookout for other supporting vocal personnel.^{[contradictory]} They found out about Dickson, who had recently starred in the Willy Russell musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert, and had charted on the UK Singles Chart with her cover version of the David Whitfield and Frankie Laine song "Answer Me" (1976). Dickson and her manager, Bernard Theobald, had a discussion with Rice and Webber about starring in the musical, but her voice was declared "too delicate" for singing the numbers on Evita. So they offered her one song which was not sung by Eva's character, and that was "Another Suitcase in Another Hall".^{[contradictory]}

Dickson recalled that during the recording sessions, Webber asked her to sing in a higher range than her usual, since the "mistress" character was a teenager, and should have sounded younger. Before the sequence of the eviction of the mistress occurs in Act I of the musical, Eva's character sings the song "Hello and goodbye" and then "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" begins. A soft strummed guitar in broken chord patterns heralds the introductory music. Dickson sings the opening verse, and the chorus which is repeated twice as she asks, "So, what happens now?" and wonders about her immediate future, ultimately concluding that she would survive. For the second verse, the lyrics reflect on this recurring pattern of being evicted out of men's lives, and the final verses have a more positive outlook toward's the subject's life. The song finishes with the mistress asking the question, "Where am I going to?" as a male voice pacifies by saying, "Don't ask, anymore". In 2004, author Rikky Rooksby released the book The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, where he wrote his thoughts about the popularity of the song:

Eva is the center of attention [in the song] but the lyric does not allow a transfer of meaning outside of the context of her story. Part of the song's popularity lies in the way it finds an image—the suitcase in the hall—to express the nomadic nature of modern civilization, the feeling of urban rootlessness that many people experience. The theme of constant moving strikes a resonant note.