Hamilton An American Musical took the world by storm when it opened on Broadway in 2015. The musical is about Alexander Hamilton and his friends and family including his wife Elizabeth (Eliza). Since then the momentum has continued to grow. From people dressing as the founding fathers and Schuyler sisters (Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy) at San Diego Comic Con to the 2018 March For Our Lives posters, it truly has become more than the creator Lin-Manuel Miranda ever thought.
Since January of 2018, Miranda has released a series of songs that didn’t make it into the musical or mixtape. He has dubbed these extra songs “Hamilton Hamildrops.” They are going to be released every month in 2018. He has released these singles with artists like Weird Al Yankovic, The Decemberists, Ben Platt, Royce Da 5’ 9”, Joyner Lucas, Black Thought, and Aloe Blacc.
April’s Hamildrop was released on April 30. The title of the single is “First Burn,” which is the original draft of the song “Burn” from the musical. It’s sung by the current five “Eliza’s” in the show. This includes the Eliza’s of the Broadway company, Chicago company, West End company, Philip tour cast, and Angelica tour cast.
Unlike the original song which is almost like a sad ballad about her burning the letters Alexander wrote to her and erasing herself from his narrative, the new version shows how angry Eliza is that her husband had an affair with Maria Reynolds. Each of the “Eliza” voices add another level to the emotion of the song.
While some of the lyrics are the same, there is a lot of different ones as well. For example Miranda makes mention of real life events where Eliza knows about how Alexander looks at her sister Angelica. It was never confirmed how this made Eliza feel in history, but Miranda in the song shows how upset she is.
Throughout horistry, Alexander was known as a ladies man, and throughout the musical Miranda makes this known to the audience. In “First Burn,” he shows the same thing with the lines: “I’m not naive, I have seen woman around you. Don’t think I haven’t seen how they fall for your charms, all your charms!”
I could feel the emotion in the song. It made me feel angry at Alexander, who during most of the show I fall in love with. Even if you haven’t listened to or seen the musical you will enjoy the song because it has a more R&B style than the normal show tunes you get in most broadway musicals.
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