"And Hamilton was not always scholarly, especially not when writing for Fenno’s Gazette about the devil, who he believed had been incarnated as Thomas Jefferson."
— Eric Burns, Infamous Scribblers (via aaronsburrr)
i find ‘wait for it’ hilarious because apparently Burr’s entire philosophy in life is “I can be master of my own self, but some things are beyond my control. life and death. love, my past, forces of nature. and Hamilton, I also cannot control Hamilton.”
In the musical of my life after I’m long gone, my wife Vanessa is going to be the one who steps forward as the hero. Vanessa is not particularly fond of musicals—she only likes good ones. She is not effusive in her praise, or boastful. But when I looked up from that Chernow book and said “I think this is a hip-hop musical,” she didn’t laugh, or roll her eyes. She just said, “That sounds cool.” And that was all I needed to get started. As I fell in love with the idea of a love triangle between Eliza, Alexander, and Angelica, she said, “Can you have Angelica rap? That would be cool.”
I am someone who is so averse to travel that I wrote a whole musical about not wanting to leave my block in Washington Heights. It was Vanessa who booked us trips and time away from New York. “You don’t get any writing done here because life keeps popping up.” Thanks to her, Hamilton was written in Mexico, Spain, Nevis, Sagaponack, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic—long trips where Vanessa would take me there and then leave me alone to write while she explored. She is my first audience, and she’s a tough audience, so I know if I impress her I’ve cleared the highest possible bar. She’ll come home from work and say, “Your king tune was stuck in my head all day—that’s probably a good sign.” This started out as a note trying to explain how my wife really is the ‘best of wives and best of women,’ but I’m trying to get at something more important—this show simply doesn’t exist without Vanessa. It’s a love letter to her.
"
— Lin-Manuel Miranda on the role of his wife, Vanessa Nadal, in the creation of Hamilton. From the annotated libretto in Hamilton: The Revolution (via darrenburr)
ok so i saw @vicesandvipers daily show au with lams and just had to do an episode for it! I only managed to get the first part but im oddly proud of it so here you go! hope you all enjoy! :D
John takes a deep breath as the countdown to recording ticked down, even with a few years under his belt, it never get less scary. But he loves his job, loves it with an fervor most could only hope for. He is so lucky, especially considering who he had taken over for. Benjamin Franklin was a legend of late night TV for years, and oh the kick he would have gotten over this administration! Washington and his fractured cabinet were something else.
ok but late night talk show host John Laurens who is having a fucking ball poking fun at the washington administration and gets extremely fired up about black lives matter and essentially becomes the smiling, freckled Jon Stewart of late night tv
running jokes in the show include:
• john’s dad think’s he’s a lawyer. shh, nobody tell him
• John Adams Continually Fails To Look Normal In Any Photograph
• george dadington tries to control his administration of arguing five year olds
• alexander hamilton is Literally Still Talking Right Now
• the petition to replace thomas jefferson with a small puppy
• james madison using WebMD at work
• just a simple farmer boy from south carolina
• “more _____ than i have freckles”
• no, angelica schuyler is not yet running for president
• john laurens’ delicate southern sensibilities
and OF COURSE alexander hamilton seeks out any and all mention of himself in mainstream media and gleefully watches just about every episode of john’s show and includes a couple of sly references to it in one of his speeches, and from there it becomes a war of inside jokes and tweeting at each other until finally alex gets interviewed on john’s show and by this point other late night shows are catching on to this, and peggy’s show has an ongoing segment called “Holy Shit, Will You Two Just Kiss and Shut Up Already”
no but after that John and Alex becoming legitimate friends and partners and working together to spread awareness about serious issues (mental health, LGBT+, homeless kids) to the point that john ends up giving a speech at the white house (”In this week’s news: holy shit, i met the president”) and the next running joke on john’s show is that any time alex is brought up, john says “and now to my very good friend, secretary hamilton” complete with suggestive eyebrows
honestly just give me late night tv comedian john laurens
Okay so, everyone’s written love letters to how good the soundtrack of Hamilton is (and you should listen to it seriously it is fantastic)
But I need to talk for a second about the meta involved in the musical construction.
The main musical genres used in the soundtrack are rap, right? We know that already ‘cause that’s what got everyone’s attention in the first place – a MUSICAL about ALEXANDER HAMILTON casting POC ACTORS in MAIN ROLES and RAPPING????????
But lookit this, the soundtrack isn’t ONLY comprised of rap and R&B numbers.
There is one character in particular who sings a classic musical number like you’d expect from a Broadway show: King George.
So right here you have the Classic Showtune style of King George at odds with the rap/R&B style of the American revolutionaries.
The writer of the show, Lin-Manuel Miranda (In The Heights), has gone on record saying that the reason he chose to do a rap musical is because rap and R&B have been The Music Of The People for the past thirty years.
So right at the start you have the narrative of the young, frustrated, Revolutionaries railing against the Old World Order with new visions of what a country and a government Should be, by pitting the old school idea of what a Showtune is against something that Broadway has never really heard before – at least not this successfully or this completely.
But then you keep going deeper into it, right? Rap has always traditionally been a collaborative effort – there are very few, if any, rap songs out there that don’t have the backing of a chorus, at the very least. It’s just sort of the nature of the genre, no rapper raps alone, they always have support. Likewise, while there are solos in the songs in Hamilton, no character sings entirely alone. They’re either backed up by the ensemble, or they’re joined by one or more of the other characters.
In contrast, King George only sings alone. His songs are entirely just him. There’s no backup singers or anything.
Not until, at the very end of the song and at least one of the reprises, he calls for everyone to sing with him, and even then it’s just a couple of lines of meaningless “dadada da das.” So even where there are other voices singing along, where the Revolutionaries willingly join in of their own volition (either to support or debate, it doesn’t matter), King George’s brief backup is ordered to.
So there you have the Democracy versus Monarchy comparison.
And last but not least.
All of King George’s songs are reprises of the first one. Even after the Revolution is over, you know, he changes up some of the lyrics, but it’s still the same tune.
Because a monarchy by definition is unchanging until the individual monarch’s death, and even then there’s no guarantee because of course they’re usually kept within a family. So a monarchy cannot, by its own nature, have anything new to offer.
I need to go see this showwwwwwwww, everything about it is incredible, but the tickets are sold out for three months straight.
A lot of people have reblogged this post pointing out that “Burn” is a strictly solo piece and therefore doesn’t fit into this theory.
I’ll admit, when I first wrote this, I was in the middle of only my second listen-through, so I was writing mostly off of my impressions of the first listen-through.
I have since listened to it a few more times and specifically went back to “Burn” to double-check what it did.
And, of course, I found that it really was far outside of the structure established with the rest of the soundtrack that I vaguely outlined here (and that a lot of other people have added onto).
My response to that is: Of course it is.
“Burn” exists outside of the structure of the rest of the libretto because … wait for it … she’s taking herself out of the narrative.
You know how some people, when they go through a bad breakup, cut their hair or dye it a wild color, get a piercing, grow a beard? Just something that helps them remove themselves from the person they were while they were in that relationship?
Well, what do you do in a musical where one of the most poignant things is the musical style? You drop it.
Eliza sings by herself, in a style much more reminiscent of Traditional Broadway than anything else in the show (barring King George) because she’s removing herself from the story they were telling.
“Burn” exists outside of the structure of the rest of the libretto because … wait for it … she’s taking herself out of the narrative.
On a meta level, I think the fact that both Lin Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. got nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Musical is fucking hilarious.
Aaron Burr will always have to compete with Alexander Hamilton for his accomplishments.
