the actual post about Hamilton

[kate_nepveu]

Hamilton is a Broadway musical that posits that the music of the American Revolution and the early days of the United States would be hip-hop and tells the story of Alexander Hamilton through that lens, using a main cast that's all POC except King George III. It is musically brilliant and emotionally engaging and entirely not for everyone; I'm setting a timer (I am, in fact, going to write like I'm running out of time) and in that time I'm going to try and give you, dear reader, a sense of whether it's for you.

First, content notes: (history is spoilers) major character death; death of adult child; infidelity, layered with some pretty gross sexism; period-typical literally toxic masculinity; mentions of slavery; anti-immigration rhetoric.

Second, well, it is about the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers, from the perspective that the project and the people were flawed but on the whole were positive. And if that's not a thing you want in your entertainment, that's cool. Here are some dogs photographed mid-air.

Third, the music. You absolutely don't need a background in hip-hop to appreciate this (though you'll recognize a lot of references if you do; ditto Broadway musicals), but if rap isn't your thing for reasons of taste, auditory processing, whatever, this is not going to work for you: not all of it is rap, but enough is that it'd be a dealbreaker.

Here's the bit that sold me, the third song, "My Shot." The entire album is on Spotify; someone's also put it up on YouTube, which might be authorized, so here's a link. The first song sums up Alexander Hamilton's life before he hits New York (orphaned, self-taught immigrant, came to public attention by writing a poem); you can hear an early version of it that the creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed at the White House. The second song introduces Hamilton to Aaron Burr, who gives him the unwelcome advice "Talk less. Smile more." and brings in three supporting characters, the Marquis de Lafayette ("America's favorite fighting Frenchman!"), Hercules Mulligan (here aged down to a tailor's apprentice), and John Laurens (abolitionist).

Here are their introductions in "My Shot" and Burr telling them to pipe down, which are annotated over at genius.com (the album comes with lyrics, thank goodness):

LAFAYETTE
I dream of life without a monarchy.
The unrest in France will lead to ‘onarchy?
‘Onarchy? How you say, how you say, ‘anarchy?’
When I fight, I make the other side panicky.
With my-

HAMILTON/LAURENS/LAFAYETTE/MULLIGAN
Shot!

MULLIGAN
Yo, I’m a tailor’s apprentice,
and I got y’all knuckleheads in loco parentis.
I’m joining the rebellion cuz I know it’s my chance
to socially advance, instead of sewin’ some pants!
I’m gonna take a-

HAMILTON/LAURENS/LAFAYETTE/ MULLIGAN
Shot!

LAURENS
But we’ll never be truly free
until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me,
you and I. Do or die. Wait till I sally in
on a stallion with the first black battalion
have another-

HAMILTON/LAURENS/LAFAYETTE/MULLIGAN
Shot!

BURR
Geniuses, lower your voices.
You keep out of trouble and you double your choices.
I’m with you, but the situation is fraught.
You’ve got to be carefully taught:
If you talk, you’re gonna get shot!

And here's Hamilton's response, a.k.a. the bit that made me laugh out loud and love this forever:

HAMILTON
Burr, check what we got.
Mister Lafayette, hard rock like Lancelot,
I think your pants look hot,
Laurens, I like you a lot.
Let’s hatch a plot blacker than the kettle callin’ the pot...
What are the odds the gods would put us all in one spot,
poppin’ a squat on conventional wisdom, like it or not,
a bunch of revolutionary manumission abolitionists?
Give me a position, show me where the ammunition is!

I just. That's amazing. The end.

And yet, the same song, later on, combines both the reason why the form of this musical is genius and why its subject matter isn't for everyone:

HAMILTON
Scratch that,
this is not a moment, it’s the movement
where all the hungriest brothers with
something to prove went?
Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand,
we roll like Moses, claimin’ our promised land.

(The question mark is in the album lyrics; I wouldn't have transcribed it that way.) Because yes, hungriest brothers and the movement, and no, not your promised land, not promised to you, not your land, no.

Anyway. The music is catchy as fuck; I've already mentioned "My Shot," and while I don't love "Wait for It" the way some people do, "The Room Where It Happens" is growing on me, and I share the love for the Darth Vader Boyfriend Britpop of King George III ("and when push / comes to shove / I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love!"). It's also very cleverly structurally, though my experience with musicals is limited so I'm not sure if that's an ordinary selling point for the form. You can understand almost everything by just the cast album, because everything but one scene (note: history is spoilers) is in it.

(Also, here's a cut rap dissing John Adams because I love it; NSFW because of audible cursing.)

Quick last thoughts:

Don't be like me and listen to the last several songs while driving! I knew it would be emotional but I was not just leaking tears but flat-out sobbing while driving, which was really stupid and unsafe. (It didn't occur to me to, uh, stop listening, because I wasn't thinking clearly.)

(Edit) Passes Bedchel by the skin of its teeth, but the women are amazing and I love Eliza and Angelica's relationship, and that Eliza gets the last word. (However I really hate the treatment of Maria, even though it's Alexander POV.)

Here are some more introductory links and discussion from rydra_wong. Here is a delightful (spoilery, naturally) summary of each song in one line in case you can't remember which song is which: side a, side b (as reblogged by Miranda himself).

#Ham4Ham is a thing where they do lotteries for cheap tickets, and sometimes do shows before the lottery drawings; this is one where they do a whole song, “Ten Duel Commandments”, with the stage manager calling the lighting etc. cues in the background, so you can actually get a sense of how the song is staged.

And now I'm out of time. In the sense that my timer has been beeping.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

(as reblogged by Miranda himself)

"Tagged: Bahahahaha."

[kate_nepveu]

With even more "ha"s for the second one!

[hebethen]

I saw a thing where Miranda was explaining his rationale for posting all (except one) of the songs online for free (tl;dr - tickets are expensive and he remembers what that's like), so at least one version is official?

[kate_nepveu]

A different one got taken down; I don't know if you can trust the text on that playlist saying it's from the music company, that's all (especially since Spotify is free).

[jhameia]

When it was up on NPR I had it on loop about three times. Thanks for this post! Said everything I couldn't ^____^

[kate_nepveu]

Glad to be helpful!

[jesse_the_k]

I just sat down with Genius and the MP3s I got from iTunes. First time I want to get CDs so I can get that detailed high quality!

This is so lovely, and I think your post is a great gateway drug.

[kate_nepveu]

Yay! The annotations are pretty helpful, too.

[yhlee]

*sob* This sounds completely up my alley but I'm out of spending money for this month, which means I will not be able to look into it before Yuletide signups close. I'm listening to "My Shot" on YouTube and regrettably I can't understand a word of it. Even when I was addicted to Andrew Lloyd Webber, I had to get the CDs so I could read the lyrics out of the booklets.

[kate_nepveu]

All the lyrics are online!

Per song

http://genius.com/albums/Lin-manuel-miranda/Hamilton-original-broadway-cast-recording

or the lyrics booklets as downloadable PDFs from the publisher:

https://warnermusicgroup.box.com/s/98o13fgs1vrb2wxqe1zel2ugw7ppryv9

[rosefox]

Full annotated lyrics:

http://genius.com/albums/Lin-manuel-miranda/Hamilton-original-broadway-cast-recording

EDIT: Never mind, Kate got there first. :)

[rydra_wong]

All free on Spotify, AFAIK, and on YouTube in a possibly-authorized way. No spending money required!

This is because Lin-Manuel Miranda loves us and wants us to be happy.

[skygiants]

I pretty much knew I was going to love it when everyone started talking about it, but I did not expect that I would have listened to the whole thing like ten times through and still not be sick of it yet....?? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS.

[kate_nepveu]

The whole thing? I'm impressed--I will have to force myself to relisten to "Say No to This," because ARGH, or the sad ones, because sad. I know I should, because structure and everything, but my available time for sobbing is pretty limited.

[metaphortunate]

I CAN'T EVEN FUCKING DEAL WITH HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS.

I posted this on Twitter but this afternoon the Junebug was playing with his trains and singing:

"It must be nice
It must be nice
To have cargo on your side."

I may have played the album a little too often, is what I'm saying.

Except, uh, for two songs on Act 2, which I am not listening to again anytime soon, because. Yeah.

[kate_nepveu]

eee Junebug!

[jesse_the_k]

Junebug's first filk?

[metaphortunate]

Oh my god, you're right! :D

[rilina]

Thanks for this post--which I can link to in the future, instead of attempting to be coherent in my own journal! Your mention of the musical in an earlier post was what made me finally get down to googling what everyone was talking about so thanks for that push, too.

[kate_nepveu]

Hey, glad to be of help!

[jjhunter]

This post tipped me over into buying the album the day you posted it. Now I'm on my second round of listening through, working my way through all the genuis.com lyric annotations, and writing bad Hamilton limericks on request.

There once was an orphan A. Ham
who made his shot worth a damn
he fought war to win
he got his words in
then got shot by his frenemy man

[kate_nepveu]

Oh my gosh I think that's adorable.

[jjhunter]

Aw, thank you! The ending felt a little clunky when I wrote it, but it's grown on me. :o)

[metaphortunate]

The Schuyler sisters begin their song with a few lines to each other about the Revolution and New York; does that count for Bechdel purposes?

[kate_nepveu]

Hmm, yeah, I guess! Will edit; thanks!

[lokifan]

OMG treatment of Maria >.< Tut tut, Mr Hamilton. Also yes, I didn't know what was coming at all (I'm English) and ended up sobbing near-hysterically all the way through It's Quiet Uptown. So yeah. I listened all the way through again yesterday (and cried buckets again) but Hamilton may have to go next to Rent on my shelf of Musicals I Love And Often Skip The Second Act Of.

[kate_nepveu]

I think I knew about Philip because of general discussion, and of course I knew about Alexander--out of curiosity, did Burr's "I'm the damn fool that shot him" not necessarily imply to you a fatal shooting?

(I often skip big chunks of the second half of Rent, but because I don't think it's as good.)

[lokifan]

I'd been semi-avoiding discussion until I could listen, so while I knew Hamilton would get shot at the end from that line, I didn't know about Philip. I was just like 'hey, grown-up Philip all clever and sexy, excellent! OMG Hamilton giving him advice on how to stay alive, I have a terrible feeling...' and then tears forever.

(I don't think it's as good either, but Goodbye Love is great.)