Imagine the experience of being one of the first individuals to see Lin-Manuel Mirandas now-classicHamilton: An American Musicallive.
The first thing you notice is the spartan, largely empty stage.
Thats a lot to take in from the start.
In addition to its many ingenious quirks and hooks,Hamiltonis truly amusicalmusical.
And it does so at a musical sprint with almost no expository time-wasting in-between.
As such, theHamiltonsoundtrack is a staggeringly impressive piece of recent culture.
A passionate, thrivingHamiltonfandom rose up out of that soundtrack and it continues through to this day.
Its undoubtedly the least energetic and weakest full song on theHamiltonsoundtrack.
Hercules Mulligan mumbling tear this dude apart is certainly a soundtrack highlight though.
The Story of Tonight (Reprise)
What would any Broadway musical soundtrack be without a reprise or two?
The Story of Tonight (Reprise) is certainly fun.
But, ultimately, tales of Hamiltons legendary horniness would have been better suited with a full song.
Its Quiet Uptown
This is sure to be a controversial spot on the list for this much-loved ballad.
Its Quiet Uptown is indeed composed quite beautifully.
Stay Alive
Set in the brutal dredge of the Revolutionary War, Stay Alive is a song about desperation.
It also feels like one long middle with no compelling introduction or conclusion.
Best of Wives and Best of Women
Talk about the calm before the storm.
Its brief, lovely, and effective.
Odom Jr.s real flare for showmanship turns what could be throw-away intros into truly excellent material.
A Winters Ball
Again: Burrs monologues are always a welcome presence in these tracks.
Your Obedient Servant
Your Obedient Servant isHamiltons loving ode to passive aggression.
WellHamiltonbasically does that with The Reynolds Pamphlet.
The ominous music injects real import into the simple act of writing that would upend the Hamilton familys lives.
It rather ingeniously incorporates the young Philips own musical motif before ending in tragedy.
Burn
Musically, Burn is not one of the better ballads inHamilton.
Lyrically, however, its power is hard to deny.
Phillipa Soo does a remarkable job communicating Elizas pain at her husbands betrayal.
and the audiences response is hell yeah!.
The show is uncommonly good at dramatizing boring political processes, and The Election of 1800 is no exception.
The song builds up to a pseudo-reprisal of Washington on Your Side in a shockingly effective and cathartic way.
Each and every time the concept comes up in a song, it truly stands out.
Guns and Ships
Ballads are nice.
I want songs are nice.
Recurring motifs are nice.
But sometimes you need a song that just goeshard.
Thanks to Americas favorite fighting Frenchman thats what Guns and Ships delivers.
Jefferson (and Daveed Diggs) is operating at an absurdly high capacity in Washington on Your Side.
Right Hand Man
Thirty-two thousand troops in New York Harbor.
Thats uh… thats a lot.
The Schuyler Sisters
Honestly, The Schuyler Sisters deserve better than its placement on this list.
Then imagine how insane you would sound when explaining that it was great.
Ten Duel Commandments doesnt cover the big duel ofHamilton.
Its a teaser for whats to come.
Thankfully its a hell of a good teaser.
Cabinet Battle #2
Hamiltons two cabinet battles launch the risk of being the cringiest part of the show.
Somehow, however, the novelty works and the creativity of Mirandas writing shines through.
Cabinet Battle #1
The two Cabinet Battles are pretty interchangeable on the list.
#1 gets the nod because of we know whos really doing the planting.
We can dive into the specifics of what really works about the songs in a later entry.
I Know Him
I Know Him also features only one burst of da-da-das.
Dear Theodosia
Perhaps more so than any other character inHamilton, Aaron Burr works best on his own.
The character (and the man he was based on) plays things close to the vest by design.
Its only through his musical soliloquies that we get a real sense of the guy.
Thats what makes Dear Theodosia so powerful in particular.
One Last Time
George Washington owned slaves.
At the end of the day, its an inescapable fact for the country to confront.
To that end, One Last Time is one of the most unexpectedly moving songs in the show.
Washington is committing one of the most important and selfless acts in American history by stepping aside.
Yet theres a real sense of sadness as the cast chants George Washingtons going hooo-ooo-ooome.
Then there are all the usual exciting Act-ending reprisals and recurring motifs to boot.
Say No To This is a real showcase for both Miranda and Maria actress Jasmine Cephas Jones.
This is a devastatingly catchy jazzy number about marital infidelity…. as all songs about marital infidelity should be.
our narrator Aaron Burr asks inHamiltons superb opening number.
Alexander Hamilton is more than up to the task.
Wait for It
Just like the rest of us, Burr is the main character of his own story.
And the show allows him to tell that story in songs like Wait For It.
Wait For It is an exciting, downright explosive bit of songwriting.
Its every bit the I want song for Burr that My Shot is to Hamilton.
Burr is alone once again in this powerful number.
And he uses that privacy as an excuse to loudly…
LOUDLY exclaim his modus operandi.
He comes from a similar background as Hamilton and he wants mostly the same things as Hamilton.
The difference between the two of them is that Burr is willing to wait for it all.
ForHamilton, its ninth.
This is the song where the borders between Aaron Burr: Narrator and Aaron Burr: Vengeance-Seeker come down.
At its core, this is a play not only about legacy but about the fungible nature of legacy.
Alexander Hamilton is gone and we know his story lives on.
But who will tell that story?
In the end, its not the revolutions or the pamphlets but the love.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has described Thomas Jefferson as the shows Bugs Bunny.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the ludicrously jaunty track that opens upHamiltons Act Two.
There might not be a more joyful or outright hilarious three minutes in any of the soundtracks 46 songs.
After several years spent living it up in France, Daveed Diggss TJ returns to the United States.
This penultimate song is a truly stunning piece of work.
This is a sprawling performance that brings back The 10 Duel Commandments in expected yet still emotional fashion.
Rarely are those I wants as passionate and thrilling as My Shot.
This was reportedly the song that Miranda took the longest to write and its clear now to see why.
Just about everything we need to know about Alexander Hamilton and what drives him is introduced here.
To put it quite simply: Yorktown goes hard.
It is fast, harsh, chaotic, and thrilling.
Its to the songs immense credit that the music and lyrics capture the enormity of the moment.
Were in the shit now, and Hercules islovingit.
Helpless
Helpless might be pound for pound the best musical moment in all ofHamilton.
Within the context of the show, its even better.
What makes Helpless truly great, however, is the song that follows it…
1.
Satisfied
Wait, wait… why is Angelica saying rewind?
Why do we need to rewind?
We had such a lovely night!
The transition between Helpless and Satisfied isHamiltons greatest magic trick.
The former presents a night of unambiguous love and celebration.
Then the latter arrives to teach us that there is no such thing as unambiguous inHamilton.
But its also a story of Angelicas loss.
Satisfied is the emotional lynchpin ofHamilton, and as such also its very best song.
