You may have noticed that I am completely and utterly obsessed with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s basically perfect musical, Hamilton, the cast album for which you can either buy or stream in full here (I recommend buying it, obviously, but you can also get it for free if you have Amazon Prime.)
I have been listening to said album NON-STOP (that is also the name of a song), and one of the greatest pleasures of this has been re-discovering just how incredible Leslie Odom Jr. is as Aaron Burr.
It’s not that I didn’t think he was fantastic when I saw the show IRL, it’s that I was very, very distracted by the electric Daveed Diggs, who plays Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. His parts are really fun! He gets to bounce around a lot! Also, to be fair to me, this is what Daveed Diggs looks like:
IT’S DISTRACTING, okay?
But on re-listen after re-listen, I keep returning to Odom Jr’s “Wait For It,” which is really Aaron Burr’s ENTIRE SOUL in a song.
HA YOU HAVE TO BUY IT NOW TO HEAR THE SONG
It’s perfect. And it’s no accident that the other song that’s really taken over my heart with its complexity over time is “Dear Theodosia,” another Burr-heavy number. His musicianship is utterly, utterly incredible, and he REALLY sells Burr to us. You get Burr’s jealousy and his despair and his preoccupation with not losing his parents’ legacy, and his love for his daughter (WHO IS GONNA DIE IN A SHIPWRECK AND HE DOESN’T KNOW IT) and now I think about him, and Leslie Odom Jr, constantly.
As an actor, too, you always get the sense that he understands how MAGNIFICENT Hamilton is, which is important:
BROWN: Now that you have been doing Hamilton for some time and you’ve got another year to go, do you feel you get something new out of every performance?
ODOM: Well, this show, the reason why I had to do it is because I could sense from my early experiences with it that it was going to make me a better actor and a better person. It makes me a better actor because there are a lot of bad habits that you develop. Hamilton is a masterpiece. Lin doesn’t say that, that’s coming from me. I recognize it as a masterpiece. I have never worked on a masterpiece before. A lot of the material that I’ve done, quite frankly, it’s paid the bills, but it’s subpar material. People are doing the best they can within the constructs of television and how political and sterile that kind of environment can be. There are a lot of tricks you can develop to make that stuff seem better than it is, and none of that stuff works on Hamilton. Those tricks go out the window when you are confronted with a masterpiece. It forces you to develop a more honest, pure way of communicating the material. That’s when you can see what you’re made of as an artist; that’s when you really see what your talent is and what you are capable of.
Also, Odom Jr did one of those Grub Street Diet features for New York Mag, and I love him WHOLLY now:
I make it a priority to make sure my grandmother gets into town for any of my important life events. She lives in South Carolina, but she doesn’t like to fly, so she took the train. She stayed with family out in Queens, and I didn’t get to see her at all on opening night. This was the last time I could see her. We had a little date at Angus, where I had a burger, fries, mixed greens, and mint tea.
Thank you for existing, sir.
(Photo via)
So there is obviously a lot to love about this article and Hamilton and Leslie Odom Jr. in general, but can I just say my favorite thing of all is the MAGNIFICENT SHADE he throws at Smash in that interview?
A lot of the material that I’ve done, quite frankly, it’s paid the bills, but it’s subpar material. People are doing the best they can within the constructs of television and how political and sterile that kind of environment can be.
Bless your heart, Leslie Odom Jr., I’m sure they did do their best.
Also, favorite Burr lines / Leslie Odom Jr. deliveries? “It takes and it takes and it takes” is always haunting, but also I laugh every time I hear “We’re reliable with THE LAAAADIES!”
That “LAAAADIES” line catches me off guard EVERY TIME.
“Okay, so we’re doing this” in the middle of Ten Duel Commandments. It’s one of the only pieces that doesn’t have quite the same impact on the cast recording, but live it was just phenomenally delivered and so, so funny.
“Can we agree that duels are dumb and immature?” I don’t know why I laugh, but I sure do.
“You shot him in the side! Yes, he yields!”
I have watched the White House version of Alexander Hamilton, and it’s amazing how it’s so funny when it’s very HEY TRAGEDY INCOMING in the musical despite being lyrically near-identical.
I was going to tweet this article at you, but decided to check the comments first. I was not disappointed.
I will admit that I was slightly disappointed with Odom when I first saw the musical — that might be the wrong word, but while Wait For It was my favorite song, I was expecting a very different energy from whoever played Burr, and so Odom confused me. I expected him to be a hothead, because all I knew about him was the duel and the possible treasonous actions he undertook as VP to split off part of the Louisiana Purchase to create his own country. That demands a hothead, no? And Odom’s Burr is so cool and calculated. But after reading Chernow’s book, I realize I was wrong and Odom’s performance is sublime.
Favorite Burr moments besides “Wait For It” — “We keep meeting.” Also, “the world was wide enough, for Hamilton and me.” So beautiful.
Worry not, any Toast coverage of Hamilton sends an alert through the waves of the internet into my very soul.
I had a similar experience to the one Nicole describes here: a lot of the Burr songs are hitting me harder on the cast album than they did onstage, where I would generally think, “This is fine, but what is Angelica Schuyler doing right now?” I wonder if it might not be because Burr’s stuff tends to be so introspective and simply staged (obviously excepting The Room Where It Happens) that in the theater you can have the sense that you’re losing momentum, but listening to the album it’s easier to just relax into how rich and beautiful the sound is.
How was “The Room Where it Happens” staged??? I will never get to see this show, tell me everything.
I am terrible at describing staging, but in “The Room Where It Happens” the chorus is doing a kind of Fosse-esque jazz dance all around him, and as soon as Burr realizes that he, too, wants to be in the room where it happens (room where it happens) he starts to join in, and it’s just big and sweeping and show-stoppy as hell. I think there’s some footage of it here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISPISYEp8Aw
My breath always catches at the moment he jumps and the ensemble member yanks the tablecloth out from under him. It’s a simple move, but it could be a disaster if he was even a second late.
Thank you so much for sharing that!
This has a good amount of it (including the tablecloth thing) and of several other songs: https://vimeo.com/135617347
BLESS YOU AND YOUR HOUSE!
I read that as BLESS YOU AND YOUR HORSE and I kind of like it better.
BLESS YOUR HORSE AS WELL.
I also think that when we saw it on stage at the Public, Burr’s part was a little too large : I remember sighing a couple of times when he showed up in the second act because his parts were getting repetitive. So editing his part down some actually increased his impact.
Even in the theater, I did not think any song would have the impact Satisfied had on me — and then Wait For It happened, and I don’t think I breathed for the entire song.
Yeah, I do not miss his reprise of Dear Theodosia at all. Good call on cutting that.
This is exactly my experience. I found Burr a little underwhelming, especially when the show can be so flashy. But I cannot stop listening to his songs. “Wait for It” is like a physical punch in the gut every time.
“I am the one thing in life I can con-TROL!” hits me every time.
I love the flirting/wordplay with Angelica – “Burr, you disgust me” “So you’ve discussed me! I’m a trust fund, baby, you can trust me.” And then the emotion in “this man will not make an orphan of my daughter” and basically everything else in The World Was Wide Enough.
“I admire how you keep firing on the British from a distance.”
Having not seen it live but now listened to the cast album three or four times, can someone tell me if he is being serious or sarcastic here? At first I assumed sarcastic, because like, duh, firing from a distance seems ineffective. But then as I got to know Burr better, it seemed like something he might actually be down for — the ultimate waiting for it, in a way. Anyone know? (I am on the library waiting list for the Chernow, which I imagine holds the true answer, but I am impatient.)
I think he was being sarcastic and negging Washington, which seems like a bad way to get hired.
Lol, no kidding! I think another reason it’s sarcastic is that it immediately follows “I think I can be of some assistance.” Like he thinks Washington is just that incompetent.
I suspect it’s truly meant, as it reduces the likelihood that Washington’s men will die (even at the expense of their efficacy at defeating the British). Whereas Hamilton is charged with provoking them into screwing up through the constant darting in, picking folks off, and getting back out. (I have not seen the show, though.)
I’m getting the sense that there IS no answer — this seems to be in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. Which is a pretty good answer in and of itself!
Omg yes! I keep listening to that scene and Washington’s quiet “Heh” afterward, and I can just imagine the quiet scorn there and how it was staged, if Washington turned his head or body at that moment. It’s such a subtle way of demonstrating how Burr comes off and why Washington showed him out shortly after, in favor of Hamilton.
I love the
“Love does not discriminate between the sinners and the saints”
I cry every time.
“I had only one thought before the slaughter/This man will not make an orphan of my daughter!”
“If there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I’m willing to wait for it.”
“I’m taking my time, watching the afterbirth of a nation.”
maybe not favorite, but I just got to “Honestly, it’s a little draining.” in the Election of 1800, and that’s such a great line as well.
“Wait for It” is such a great song. I will confess that there are moments on the soundtrack that feel a little too exposition-y (though I appreciate it, since I haven’t seen the show). But “Wait for It” is just so good. I think I will listen to it again right now.
I love the exposition for that reason, because there’s no chance I’ll get to see it on stage. And I still think I miss something, like between “We Know” and “The Reynolds Pamphlet.” Or maybe Angelica and Eliza were right and he really was getting paranoid and that influenced his decision to out himself. It is rough that he sacrificed his personal/family reputation (and put his wife through that shame) rather than his professional one — although they implied treason was on the line, so there is that.
According to Wikipedia, James Reynolds also got involved in a plot to steal money from Revolutionary War veterans and Hamilton got implicated in that. Hamilton wrote the Reynolds Pamphlet as a rebuttal to state that he wasn’t a traitor and didn’t abuse is position financially.
Oooh! Thanks for that tidbit. I’ve read a lot of Hamilton’s wiki page too since I started listening, but it is LONG.
Yeah, I was going on about Reynolds from what I remembered of my 8th grade history project (Hamilton junkie from way back) and my son was all, “yeah, mom, it’s on Wikipedia” so I shut up. Reynolds was a shady character & there was a lot of potentially very hot water there for Hamilton. (But at least I got my son on my side as far as Hamilton-obsession goes.)
(I also insisted on playing Cabinet Battle #1 at him while he was trying to finish his US History homework. It was relevant!)
Ever since I found out that Burr was the grandson of Jonathan “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Edwards, I’ve been having a hard time holding him responsible for anything bad he ever did.
Oooh, so he was the grandson of THAT fire and brimstone preacher!
My favorite tidbit about Burr (learned from Toasties, of course) is that he had a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft hung in his office. That bit where he calls his mother a genius wasn’t LMM’s invention. Dude was a n 18th-century feminist.
preacher…preacher…preacher…
But there are things that the homilies and hymns won’t teach ya . . .
Whoa. THAT fire and brimstone preacher indeed. THE fire and brimstone preacher, in fact.
…That makes sense.
Which makes the line “Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints” sound like a polemic on the doctrine of the elect to me. Because in Edwards’s theology, it kind of *does.*
Hold up, his grandather was a fire and brimstone preacher as in THAT Jonathan Edwards? Dude, I had no idea! One of the most interesting books I ever worked on was about Edwards’s so-called “crazy grandmother” Elizabeth Tuttle. That was a weird and violent family–if I’m remembering right, there’s at least one ax murder in their history. Yeah, I can no longer blame Burr for anything; he had no chance with that family.
Whaaaatttt?! That explains so much!
I take it for granted that your Whaaattt?! was the same as Jefferson’s in “The Reynolds Pamphlet” when Angelica showed up.
Naturally
I did not know that! That makes us cousins, in a very distant way (I’m descended from one of brimstone-boy’s siblings).
Along with “Wait For It,” I think “The Room Where It Happens” is the other song that pretty much reflects his entire life. It contains everything – the longing, the jealousy, the ego, the anger, the sadness, the regret, the passion, the hope.
YES. Was just about to post something similar. They’re both incredible apart, but they make a phenomenal pair. The Room Where It Happens pulls beautifully from Wait For It, and he packs so much WANTING into the last bars of that song, my god.
Also, as a theater and history nerd (who spent much of high school and college doing primary source research on this period), the fact that I am currently grooving SO HARD to a song about the relocation of the U.S. capital brings me immense and daily joy.
And the motif of “talk less … smile more” woven throughout, which is SO Burr.
In “The Room Where It Happens,” it sounds like he’s not only acknowledging his own longing for the first time, he’s *recognizing* it for the first time.
The more I listen to the soundtrack, the more “Wait For It” absolutely blows me away.* The part in the last verse where it starts out quiet but then the percussion picks back up from underneath? I die. It’s SO GOOD.
*do you see what I did there
ETA: Those Grub Street Diet things have me rolling my eyes HARD most of the time, but dude has apparently my exact taste in food. Solid menu planning, sir.
I love how he hits you with that heart-rending line “If there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I’m willing to wait for it” AND THEN the rising bridge comes in and just breaks you. I am a mess when I hear that song. An absolute mess.
I saw the show this weekend and the whole audience clapped so hard when that song ended that the next dialogue had to come on to quiet our applause.
HE IS SO GOOD.
* His musicianship is, as Nicole says, astonishing. Crank up the speakers on “Room Where It Happens” and listen to what he’s doing behind the ensemble. Hot damn. Listen to the way he pours the anguish and misery into “The World Was Wide Enough.”
* He’s also an amazing actor? He’s so self-contained but he spends so much of the show slinking around the edges, watching and waiting, and so restrained that he’s holding himself back even when he SHOULD dive in. And then – he shoots, he tries to go to Hamilton and he is pulled away. AUGH.
* He is HAAAAAAAANDSOOOOOOOOOOME. I mean, everyone in this show is stunning, but. (Sadly I cannot find any shirtless pictures but I recommend spending some time on the google image results for Mr. Odom and appreciating his beauty.)
* He favorites tweets that aren’t about him but saying good things about the show because he’s a team player.
* Did I mention he is handsome? And an amazing singer?
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEI4YC1uDOo I MEAN!!!
My husband took my mild obsession with Hamilton and just totally ran with it, he is OBSESSED. This weekend, we were having a serious discussion about religion/children/etc., and at one point I asked him something about his beliefs, what he’d like to pass on to our kids.
He thought for a minute or two, then finally said “I really see myself as more of a Burr than a Hamilton.” He did expand on it a bit, but dude!
Omg, I can imagine how that would make you recoil, gathering your children to you.
My favorite thing at the moment is the “Talk less, smile more!” campaign mantra. I want to start a discussion on today’s “talk less, smile more” candidates. Hillary is kinda one (I believe she has stances, but she’d obviously rather avoid making herself into a target, and it’s so easy for the media and Republicans to jump on her). Mitt Romney was too. I kinda wish today’s Republican candidates WOULD talk less and smile more…though maybe it’s good they’re being ultra-clear, for the general election season.
but yeah, I love “The Election of 1800” and the chants of “Burr!” between his lines. In my imagining of the production’s staging, I see the chorus raising BURR campaign signs with every chant.
I don’t care how much Republicans are smiling, I am more interested in the “talk less” part.
Oh man, I LOVE “Talk less, smile more” (brief sidenote, my favorite use of it might be after Hamilton’s wedding when Burr says, “Smile more,” all affectionately and I sob), and it is such an interesting tool to use on our current crop of candidates. Bernie’s a total Hamilton, and I agree with you that Hillary is going the TLSM route more out of pragmatism than any real desire to. I keep changing my mind on whether or not that describes Ted Cruz: on the one hand he’s clearly an intelligent rhetorician, and that New Yorker profile of him from a few months back talked a lot about he was a brilliant classical debater, which seems like a skill set that would lend itself to the TLSM route. On the other hand, that would mean that all the terrible thing he says are considered totally reasonable, uncontroversial stances among his base, and I don’t know if I can handle living in that world.
Ted Cruz is definitely not Talk Less. He’s way too upfront about hating mariage equality, despite how he must know the poll stats are real on how the demographics are overwhelmingly against him. But he has his diehard base, and he somehow thinks he can ride their support all the way. Ugh.
She seems approachable. Like I could have a beer with her.
He seems approachable? Like you could grab a beer with him!
LOVE. IT.
When I read his name, I hear it in my head as spoken by the guy in the milk commercial, with a mouth full of peanut butter sandwich, mournfully, “Aaon Buh.”
I am sure everyone has already seen the parody Leslie did, but JUST IN CASE it is HILARIOUS.
I didn’t but now I have and thank you!!!
THIS IS THE BEST!
It turns out that Michael Bay directed that commercial and now I have to respect him a little bit for it. Just a bit.
So glad I’m not the only one obsessed with “Wait For It.” I think it might be one of the most amazing songs from a musical I’ve ever heard.
When I reached it in my first listen of the soundtrack, I really couldn’t get past it. Listening over and over again. I am so obsessed with this show that I haven’t even seen yet and it’s heartbreaking.
That is one of the only musical theater songs I’ve heard from the past twenty years or so that I think might become a legitimate radio hit. There are a lot of good Broadway songs out there, but there aren’t that many that also have the kind of structure that lends itself to becoming a breakaway pop hit.
Yes! I was thinking “This isn’t just a great song in the context of the musical, this is just a great song period.” And the emotion behind it, even if you don’t know the story you can FEEL exactly what it means to him.
Someone on tumblr pointed out that Aaron Burr talks about death, life, love, and Alexander Hamilton as if they are equally powerful forces.
Thank you for sharing all of this! God, it makes me so happy that LMM and the rest of the cast have their careers made now (or so I choose to believe). Can’t wait to see what LMM does next.
Oh, you hadn’t heard? Imma gonna blow your mind: Miranda’s currently writing the next big Disney musical, Moana, about a spirited young teenaged girl who takes to the sea, co-starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
It couldn’t be more Toast-friendly if it tried.
Oh my god this is the most thrilling news I have EVER HEARD.
NO!!! *exclaimed with a super-incredulous gasp, when you’re actually thrilled but dare not believe it*
…And you provided a link, thank God, so I don’t need to badger you further! WHAT A JOYOUS AGE WE LIVE IN. THE AGE OF LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, ALL PRAISE TO HIS NAME.
Maybe if I start saving up and planning now, I can see that show… Or is this a movie, rather than theatre??
Movie! Presumably it will be a musical later, once Frozen has made its debut on Broadway.
I am so pleased I got to see your reaction. It’s a movie! We’ll all get to see it!
“WHAT A JOYOUS AGE WE LIVE IN. ” –I believe you mean “Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now…”
WELL PLAYED.
MIRANDA IS WRITING IT???? All of my doubts about that movie are gone, but now I cannot wait for that movie to arrive.
I know right?
YESSSS at last he can collect his EGOT. Because let’s face it, there’s no way he’s getting out of that movie without an Oscar.
He’s already got the EGT, so yeah, he’s gotta EGOT.
Omgomgomg! I heard a few months ago that Taika Waititi was attached to that film, too, but didn’t know about LMM and now I can’t even.
Taika Waititi is writing it?!?! Great, I wasn’t excited enough with LMM. I need this movie right now!!!!! Until then, I guess I’ll go rewatch What We Do in the Shadows.
So that’s his EGOT in the bag, then!
Whaaaatt?!!
/Hamiltonvoice
Link in case you don’t believe me: http://m.playbill.com/news/article/hamiltons-lin-…
WHAT WHAT WHAT OMG WHAT THIS IS AMAZING I CANNOT EVEN
OH MY GOD i DIDN’T KNOW THAT THEODOSIA BURR DIED IN A SHIPWRECK
WE DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT FOR SURE
OFFICIAL DESIGNATION WAS “LOST AT SEA” AND SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT SHE’D SURVIVED BUT BURR MAINTAINED SHE WAS DEAD FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE AND NOW I’M CRYING
AAAAAAHHHH OH MY GOD
It is likely that the shipwreck was caused by pirates, and that’s how she died. Shitty, shitty, silver age pirates.
Aaron Burr raised his daughter to ride horse, speak Greek and Latin, and do mathematics. he twice floated a bill that would grant the vote to women.
Interesting fact I learned on Wikipedia this morning, he also sponsored the bill to abolish slavery in New York State.
Some people actually think she was the “Female Stranger” who was buried in Alexandria, Virginia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_Stranger There’s absolutely nothing to support the theory, but it’s . . . there. (Along with the “she swooned romantically in the arms of a Karankawa warrior” and “pirates made her walk the plank.”)
Head cannon: Theodosia survived to live a long life and is the ancestor of Allison, Benny’s “wealth Daughter of the Revolution” wife in Rent.
The existence of this musical has really introduced me to too many feelings about random Founding Fathers’ personal lives.
I know! I just love them alllllllll
BUT: not enough to take any of them off money and put a woman on there
Think thats heartbreaking, look up Eliza Schuyler, aka Mrs. Hamilton. Her life is one tragedy after another.
Hi I think Aaron Burr may be my favorite character in the show and possibly more interesting than Hamilton I’ll just show myself out now
ETA: Also Leslie produced a video about opening night from the cast’s perspective and it’s amazing and you need to watch it
My first listen through I definitely found myself identifying with him a lot!
I definitely identify more with Aaron Burr than Hamilton. I just don’t have that certainty I’m right.
“Wait for It” and “Non-Stop” are the songs that have been haunting me all week. A LOT of them have been stuck in my head, but those songs are very honestly making me think about how I approach life and what I want out of it.
Friday night I had one of those nights where you can’t sleep because you’re contemplating your own mortality, and when I told this to my husband, he said, suspiciously: “Is this because of Hamilton?”
So I get where your’e coming from.
“Non-Stop” is becoming my new favourite and Odom kills it all over that song. The force and anger behind, “Hamilton wrote the other fifty-one” — like, who even does that? Who even would think to be that incredible?
Same! SAAAAAAME! Both songs!
Lines like “I am the one thing in life I can control”, “It’s full of contradictions! / So is independence!”, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?”, and the refrain of “Love/Death/Life doesn’t discriminate / it takes and it takes and it takes / and we keep loving/living anyway” just make feel every feeling all at once. And Non-Stop, the sheer energy that it builds into, the beautiful call-backs to earlier songs layered into the verses (especially the “wait for it” echo). The first time I heard it, I felt breathless. Both songs leave me weeping every time (I’m a horrible sap). Burn is another (“Your sentences left me defenseless / You built me palaces out of paragraphs / you built cathedrals”, “I’m erasing myself from the narrative!”, “The world has no right to my heart!” UGGGGH THE FEELS) but those two definitely stand out as, like you said, haunting.
Oh and I just remembered the line (and lovely Leslie’s delivery of) “I’m not standing still / I’m lying in wait” and nearly cried. SO GOOD. I never expected to this overcome by this musical but here we are. lol
I still don’t entirely understand how Miranda — who has written one Tony-award winning musical (also nominated for best actor), one Tony-nominated musical, a third that seems destined to win a million more Tonys and was performed at the White Hosue, and who is working on the next Disney movie (eventually destined to be a musical), all by age 35 — worries he’s more of a Burr than a Hamilton.
Also can we discuss the similarities to Amadeus? (Though Hamilton was more actively against Burr than Mozart against Salieri.) I think that’s partially why/how Burr is so sympathetic in this. (Jefferson is the biggest asshole in the soundtrack, just beating out George.)
He’s also an Eliza with his sheer optimism and niceness! Following him on Twitter is the greatest, he’s so positive and sincere.
Yes yes George is an asshole but I LOVE LOVE his song.
I will admit that singing “I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love” miiight creep other people out a tad out of context
I might be currently planning to learn that song on banjolele to sing at the next pub session I play at. Partly because of that line.
Yo where is that first quotation from?
Also relevant to our interests:
Which Schuyler Sister Are You?”
I’m Eliza (yaaaaaaas)
ANGELICA!!!
Another Angelica. (I’m Peggy by temperament, but decidedly Angelica in my choice of hangover breakfast and vacation.)
nooooo i’m peggy :((((((
I’m Peggy too. I love how she goes “And Peggy” in the song.
https://vine.co/v/edKAjbHmTbM
One hundred percent think of that sketch every time that song is on! You and I are as one.
Peggy was a badass in real life! she faced down an armed British + Iroquois raiding party that was attacking her house, and rescued a baby. While her sisters and mother were literally clinging to Peggy’s dad, being useless.
I’m Peggy which I suppose ought to be disappointing but is probably just as well because a threesome with my sister and either my husband or her husband sounds unappealing.
tbh, the Hamilton-Angelica thing weirded me out more than the Reynolds affair. The latter can be chalked up to a horrible mistake, but I would be very uncomfortable if my husband and my sister had unresolved feelings for each other.
And Peggy. (Who was really badass IRL!)
I am also an Eliza, but all the Peggys should appreciate knowing that Lin-Manuel Miranda is among you. https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/64798298480…
My favorite is “The Room Where It Happens”-it’s so catchy, and also that yearning to be involved, making a difference! Thanks Toasties to being so annoyingly effusive about “Hamilton” that I finally listened to the soundtrack all weekend!
I have to be hyper aware of where the cat is when “The Room Where it Happens” comes on because it inevitably leads to some spontaneous, uncontrollable dancing.
“I got a $1 slice on my way home because adulthood means that any day can be pizza day!”
oh noooooo- now I, too, am in love.
Would you all like to know that Leslie Odom Jr is lovely to work with and introduces himself to randoms who work in totally different departments of the theater and then remembers their names and says hello to them outside the building weeks later? He also was very organized in the part of his job that interacted with my job, and he sent very thorough emails.
He’s also really short. But still beautiful.
Yaaaaay!
Awww. That’s excellent.
WE ALL ENVY YOU FOR YOU MEATSPACE INTERACTIONS WITH HIM.
Nooooooo this is the best information! I’ve worked with actors for a long time, and it’s always a disappointment when the really talented and/or beautiful ones are not terribly nice to admins or techs/bad at communication/kind of ignore them. It absolutely makes my heart SOAR to hear that he’s one of the good ones.
I usually resist musicals pretty hard, but I streamed this on NPR and 30 seconds into “Wait For It” I bought the whole dang thing on Amazon.
Some facts about Aaron Burr that I had to learn from Wikipedia:
Burr believed women to be intellectually equal to men, and hung a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft over his mantel. The Burrs’ daughter, Theodosia, was taught dance, music, several languages, and learned to shoot from horseback.
HE HUNG A PORTRAIT OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT OVER HIS MANTEL
YES, that is the best thing I’ve learned about him. And God, Theodosia was such a badass, I am so sorry she died in a shipwreck. She should have lived to be 97, like Eliza.
The day they announced Hamilton would be sharing space on the ten-dollar bill with a woman must have been the happiest moment of Aaron Burr’s afterlife. Feminism PLUS screwing over Hamilton? Perfection.
Add that to the necessary furnishings for the Toast Castle, please.
I have been obsessed with both “Wait for it” and “Dear Theodosia’, but I’ve been going through cycles of obsession with nearly every other track on the soundtrack. Currently replaying the tiny snippet in “Take a Break” where LMM quotes Macbeth.
And Angelica throws back a Macbeth reference at him when she arrives! Loved that.
(I’m currently obsessed with “Burn.” Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart…)
I’m currently the most obsessed with Angelica’s part in “The Reynolds Pamphlet.”
Put what we had aside
I’m standing at her side
You could never be satisfied
GOD I HOPE YOU’RE SATISFIIIIIIIED
Her voice is just so scathing in that section, it’s amazing.
So Aaron Burr says his mother was a genius, so I looked that up. (I listen to Hamilton with the Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr wikipedia pages open.) Esther Edwards Burr wrote a letter-journal from the time she was nine until her death at age 23. Here is the only thing she wrote about Aaron other than “Baby remains well” notes.
Aaron is a little, dirty, noisy boy, very different from Sally almost in everything. He begins to talk a little, is very sly, mischievous and has more sprightliness than Sally. I must say he is handsomer, though not so good tempered. He is very resolute and requires a good governor to bring him to terms.
Ahhhhhhh. Sorry, contemplating what it would be like to have that as your only substantial remembrance of your relationship with your mother.
Here: his father proposing to his mother.
This has just happened to me: Mr. Burr, President of New Jersey College, who has visited our house, both in Northampton and Stockbridge for many years — as a little girl I have romped with him and sat on his lap — rose this A. M. to take an early breakfast and start for home again, betimes on horseback for the Hudson. And it was my week to care for the table. I had spread the breakfast for him, no other member of the household having yet arisen. The cloth was as white as snow, for I had taken out a fresh one with its clean smell for the occasion, and there was not a crease in it; the room was full of the aroma of freshly made tea… The newly churned butter was as yellow as gold… Mr. Burr partook with the greatest relish, keeping up a current of gracious speech every moment; and finally fixing his flashing eyes on me, as I sat rapt and listening at the other end of the board, he abruptly said: “Esther Edwards, last night I made bold to ask your honored father, if I can gain your consent, that I might take you as Mrs. Burr to my Newark bachelor quarters and help convert them into a Christian home. What say you?” Of course, although from my early girlhood, Mr Burr had treated me with favor, I was wholly unprepared for this sudden speech, and blushed to my ears and looked down; and stammered out, as we are taught to say here: “If it please the Lord!” Though when we came to separate, I could not help playfully saying: “Was it the loaves and fishes, Mr. Burr?” He laughed and kissed me for the first time.
Oh woooow. Feel free to continue quoting these journals all day, because I am here for it.
ALL DAY
I am perplexed about our publick affairs, the Men say (tho not Mr. Burr, he is not of that sort) that women have no business to concern themselves about ’em but to trust to those that know better and be content to be destroyed — because they did all for the best — Indeed, if I was convinced that our great men did as they really thought was for the Glory of God and the good of the country, it would go a great ways to make me easy.
Wow! Be content to be destroyed. Damn.
No longer here for it because I AM DEAD.
“if I was convinced that our great men did as they really thought was for the Glory of God and the good of the country, it would go a great ways to make me easy.”
SICK
BURN
I feel like an old dead horse.
Mr. Samuel Hopkins, who has just been graduated from New Haven College, and who pleads to study divinity with Mr. Edwards, came to our house to-day. He looked to find father at home and is in some trouble of mind. …We girls, Jerusha, Mary and I, seeing his immense frame, his great honest face, and hearing his ponderous voice, have maliciously nicknamed him “Old Sincerity.”
Sally is not quite ten months old, I have begun to govourn the child, whipping her on Old Adams account. This is painful for me, but it does my child a vast deal of good.
Mr. Burr finds the child another temptation to him, to spend two much time with her – he does love to play with her dearly.
My mother has just come into the house with a bunch of sweet peas, and put them on the stand where my honored father is shaving, though his beard is very slight. We have abundance of flowers and a vegetable garden, which is early and thrifty. Our sweet corn is the first in town, and so are our green peas. My honored father of course has not time to give attention to the garden, and so Mrs. Edwards looks after everything there. Almost before the snow has left the hills, she has it plowed and spaded by Rose’s husband, who does all the hard work there. She is our colored cook. We hire her services from one of the prominent people in father’s parish, who owns both her and her husband. That word “own” sounds strangely about people.
WOW. What insight! These journals are incredible, I’m so glad they survived.
That’s…wow. Someone get Jane Austen on the phone.
I need to read more of this journal! Is it on Wikipedia as well?
Here’s a link to it. It’s pretty great. I think a more complete version was published in the 80s.
Thank you!
Also I would highly recommend reading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton biography while listening to Hamilton. The book was clearly a major source for Lin Manuel Miranda, and it’s wonderful to see how closely the songs track the real sequence of events in his life. Like “Farmer Refuted”, a song which on first listen I didn’t get much out of, but upon reading Chernow it becomes clear how the incident described pretty much launched Hamilton’s public career. Also, Chernow pretty convincingly puts paid to the notion that Hamilton’s mother was a “whore”.
I actually loved Farmer Refuted from the first listen, because of how seamlessly LMM wove together Seabury’s song and Hamilton’s rap rebuttal
Really? All those nice men taking him in as a preteen clerk and buying his mother’s books for him from her PIECE OF SHIT FUCKING THE WORST husband did it out of Christian charity?
(Not doubting, would like actual clarification)
Based on the book, she probably had relationships (and Chernow seems to think that Hamilton Sr — who was a shit, but also wasn’t her husband who was ALSO a shit — wasn’t Hamilton’s actual father) but not for money.
Right yes her first husband abused her so she fled and then lived elsewhere, raising small Hams for over a decade, and then when she died her husband showed up and sold all her possessions and said shitty things about small Hams. I think possibly he was more of a jerk than Ham Sr. who was also the worst.
ANYWAY.
Did she have a job? What was her source of income when she was raising two small children? Why is it important to clarify that she was not a sex worker?
She ran a provisions store. And Hamilton’s largest benefactors were likely relatives. James Lytton (his uncle by marriage) bought him the books, and his cousin Anne Lytton probably funded a lot of his travel and education.
Why is it important to clarify that she was not a sex worker?
Maybe because the only document actually saying she was one was a newspaper ad published by her deranged and abusive ex-husband?
Sorry, not a newspaper ad, a divorce summons
That fucking man.
She was imprisoned for adultery (against her first husband who was, yes, an abusive shit), then forced to divorce him and legally barred from remarrying. She lived off family money, then with Hamilton until their kids were 10-12, then ran a small goods store and hired out her slaves. The ex-husband and her son with him took all her property after her death and gave the Hamilton boys nothing. (I am somewhat sympathetic to that son, what he did was nasty but understandable).
The books were bought back for A. Ham by a cousin.
I’m clarifying that probably she wasn’t a sex worker because someone asked.
I always forget how many careers were available to women in the past.
And that the answer to “how did they do that” was usually “Haha, they sold the labor of their slaves, totally normal thing.”
Yeah, Chernow points out that the guy he did eventually wind up living with was likely his actual father. (In the interim he was with relatives, who one would hope would have just taken the kids in.) That guy had a son who looked startlingly like Hamilton and they were best bros. So probably not actually a prostitute, so much as a lady who may have had a few different relationships after leaving the piece of shit fucking the worst husband?
The folks who actually sent him over were doing so in part because he’d published a piece of writing that helped make clear how much the Hurricane had fucked over the town, and among the backers was probably-dad and a female cousin, and (if I recall; it’s been a minute) the man who ran the newspaper where he’d published the letter about the hurricane.
All of which you may know already!
No, no, I’ve been ratcheting around the internet reading random bits and bobs, this is good data.
It explains why a scholarship for him to ostensibly return and doctor on the island had absolutely no hold on him when it came to instead throwing himself into the revolution.
Does not explain why Hamilton sent Hamilton Sr. the equivalent of $10,000 once he was settled.
Now I have to go look up who bought his mother’s books.
I grabbed the biography as soon as I saw it at the Public Theater. Such a great work! LMM did an incredible job distilling it — there are a couple of changes from history (Angelica was married when Alexander and Eliza met, she didn’t introduce them, but they really were close and people did think they had had a relationship, it was James Monrie who was involved with the Reynolds affair, not Madison, and Hamilton and Eliza had 8 children, including a baby born after Phillip’s death who was also named Phillip) but they were pretty clearly done for narrative clarity, not out of disregard for history.
Yes, Chernow is credited as historical consultant on the show, having been involved almost from the beginning, and the book is well-attested as the primary source for the musical.
PSA: The soundtrack is also available on Spotify for all your streaming pleasure!
(heh.)
I am inimitable, I am an original!
I love that part! Burr felt his sense of destiny just as strongly as Hamilton.
I was on a walk last night and caught some of the supereclipsebloodnewmoonpart1 while ‘Wait For It” played on my listening device and it gave me a lot of feelings that I can’t really explain, but they were FEELINGS feelings.
Also, this soundtrack is VERY good walking music.
Though it might, possibly, make you flail your arms around in dramatic ways that cause the other people in the park to slant a little side-eye your way. Maybe. Not that I’d know for sure.
It’s strutting music. And “You’ll Be Back” is guaranteed to make me bop around like a goof to the “da-da-da” part.
Dear Theodosia is really, really good, and Leslie Odom Jr. has an amazing voice. But…
(whispers his confession into a cave nestled deep within the earth’s mantle)
…Lin-Manuel’s pedestrian vocals do take me out of the song. The man is a genius playwright and composer/lyricist, but not so much of a singer.
Of course, that’s not going to stop me seeing it a second time, or binging on the cast recording.
I’m not a musician and don’t have any credentials to judge what’s “pedestrian,” but I will say that LMM’s voice surprised me at first, because it’s not the typical “hero” voice. It’s higher, for one. but I think that works with the narrative — that Hamilton is an underdog, not your typical hero. (I’d love to hear a performance with a Hamilton who has a Caribbean accent, to further establish him as an immigrant, since he’s already a white man with a name we recognize today as very American.)
But I do think LMM has excellent delivery throughout the cast recording, and he seems musically capable, with enough range and endurance.
Agreed. I actually wish that we had more of LMM’s vocals on the recording. As it stands, I think Angelica and Burr and Jefferson and Philip get the most memorable songs in the show, not Hamilton. His most powerful solo is probably Hurricane? But it’s also the first song to feature a lot of his voice after “My Shot” right at the beginning. I love the vulnerability LMM conveys and could listen to a lot more of him.
His solo at the end, during “The World Was Wide Enough” after he’s shot, is damn impressive too. His desperate refrain of “Rise up, rise up” gets to me every time.
This show should’ve had a heartfelt ballad by AH about Federalist No. 10 and a rap about the founding of the Coast Guard, at least
His voice is on nearly every song on the recording. Rapping isn’t somehow “inferior” or “secondary” to singing.
Wasn’t making a distinction between rapping and singing, just pointing out how we get relatively few solo pieces by A.Ham.
It took me a full four days to listen to the entire soundtrack because I kept getting emotionally overwhelmed and having to take a break. I am not sure I could cope with seeing it live, because I would probably melt into a puddle from overwhelmed crying.
My husband agreed to listen to it last night so he’d understand what all my mumble-raps and and HERCULES MULLIGAN facts were coming from, and when we got into the second half I started inching away from my computer and saying “we could listen to the rest of this at another time, it’s cool, if you want.” By “Quiet Uptown” I was in the fetal position at the foot of my bed, wiping away tears.
At one point I was like “this is ridiculous, we are going to sit here and power on through” and then I got to Angelica talking about the comma and I very quietly and calmly took off my headphones and left it be for a few hours.
Interesting Burr fact I discovered on Wikipedia today: he probably definitely fathered two children by his servant, who was a freed slave, while still married to Theodosia.
Presented mostly without commentary, other than good lord Founding Fathers, keep it in your breeches.
I mean, one interpretation of why he married an older widow with five children is tru luv, but the other is some Benjamin Franklin shit.
Oooh, explain the Ben Franklin thing to a curious Canadian? Everything I know about the American Revolution and Founding Fathers is a mixture of Hamilton, 1776, and that episode of 30 Rock where Alec Baldwin plays Thomas Jefferson. I know he was a huge womanizer — is there some widow drama??
Dude was a sluuuuut.
Here is an excerpt from a letter to a younger friend of his.
If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.
But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:
i. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.
4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!
I cannot even with number 8
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT
I can’t stop laughing at “some Benjamin Franklin shit.”
tumblr has started referring to Thomas Jefferson as “America’s Original Fuckboy” and with that perfect fact in mind, her are some excerpts from his letters to Angelica Schuyler.
“I think I have discovered a method of preventing this dejection of mind on any future parting. It is this, when you come again I will employ myself in finding or fancying that you have some faults. & I will draw a veil over all your good qualities if I can find one large enough.”
He asked her to come with him on a vacation to America: “Let’s go back together then. you intend it a visit; so do I. While you are indulging with your friends on the Hudson, I will go to see if Monticello remains in the same place, or I will attend you to the falls of Niagara, if you will go with me to the passage of the Potowmac, the Natural Bridge, etc.,”
“Think of it, my friend, and let us begin a negotiation on the subject. You shall find in me all the spirit of accommodation with which Yoric began his with the fair Piedmontese.” (this is a reference to a novel where Yoric and the fair Piedmontese have to share a room, and they set up ways for it to be chaste but then end up having sex.)
GOD he is so good. His voice on Dear Theodosia is so sweet- it knocks me out, I fall apart (I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING).
Also I’ve seen a lot of things comparing him to Salieri in Amadeus, which I can kind of see, but for me it’s more Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Like, he wants to be friends, he wants to like him, but things just get so messy. I feel like Salieri was a hater from the start, and Burr definitely wanted to be pals. I think it’s more painful and poignant because they start out friendly.
Definitely! LMM has said that Judas-as-narrator influenced Burr’s role in the show a lot. The “HAMthology” playlist on Spotify of key influential songs includes “Heaven on Their Minds.”
This article sent me yet again down the Wiki rabbit hole, where I found this photo of one of A.Ham’s kids, William. I’m not moved overmuch by the founding fathers, but Col. Wm. Hamilton, you do amaze and astonish.
O….. oh.
I’ve also been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack “non-stop” since it started streaming and the songs have been stuck in my head for days (not that I’m complaining). My brains keeps cycling through “Wait For It” and “Dear Theodosia” the most. The first time I heard them I was utterly floored, and I keep replaying them. I did not expect Burr to give me any feelings when I started listening to the soundtrack… and so I was utterly unprepared for the effect that Leslie Odom Jr. had on me. Gahhhh.
“Dear Theodosia” is especially upsetting when you remember that Burr and Hamilton both outlived the children they’re singing to. Hell, poor Burr outlived even his grandson. It’s like everyone he loved died early deaths…
(Also, the first time I saw someone refer to Lin-Manuel Miranda as LMM, I thought they were talking about Lucy Maud Montgomery…)
“I’m not standing still, I’m lying in wait” just KILLS. Such a perfect encapsulation of how someone views the world, and how they know the world is judging them.
One of the things I love most about Hamilton (and there are so many!) is that Burr is anything but a villain. From the moment he’s introduced (“and I’m the damn fool that shot him”) to the line “the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me” in the end, his actions are never depicted as evil, just misguided. And in Dear Theodosia, it’s made clear that despite the differences in personalities, he and Hamilton had quite a bit in common. That’s the tragedy of the whole thing.
Hate to be so dissenting, but am I the only one who doesn’t think “Wait For It” is a highlight? It’s tragic, sure, but it also feels so out-of-place to me in the musical – it’s a little too pop, not enough hip-hop. Plus, it comes too soon after “Satisfied,” which, for me, might be Act I’s masterpiece.
I did not know that! That makes us cousins, in a very distant way (I'm descended from one of brimstone-boy's siblings).
Comrade! Wait For It also made me cry on the way to work this morning. And then I listened to it again and I cried some more.
So late, so sorry, but…
It's Quiet Uptown was the biggest emotional punch for me. I feel like forgiveness isn't a common theme in modern storytelling, and hearing E and A's reconciliation happen in song broke me down into tiny, tiny pieces. Definitely not the musical masterpiece of the show, but SO, so beautiful in the story it told!