{"id":7007,"date":"2023-01-27T20:02:52","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T20:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gustavopineda.com\/?p=7007"},"modified":"2023-01-27T20:02:52","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T20:02:52","slug":"hamilton-best-rhymes-verse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gustavopineda.com\/?p=7007","title":{"rendered":"The top 10 ‘Hamilton’ rhymes guaranteed to get stuck in your head"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

Hamilton<\/em> isn’t just for July 4. As many new fans drawn to the Broadway show by its holiday weekend launch on Disney+<\/a> are now discovering, this is one cultural phenomenon that rewards literally every repeat viewing or listening. <\/p>\n

And why is that? One word: poetry. While you can grasp the overall arc of this immigrant story first time around, its knotty wordplay is so rich and resonant it can take years to unpick all the meanings and internal echoes. Writer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda spent more than six years laboring away on the sound and rhythm of each line, and it shows. <\/p>\n

\n SEE ALSO:<\/span>
\n
\n ‘Hamilton’ burnishes its own legacy with a spectacular live recording
\n <\/use><\/svg>
\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n

“Every couplet had so much care going into it,” Miranda told<\/a> The Independent<\/em> back in 2015. “We’re not just rhyming at the end of sentences. We’re rhyming six times within every line in certain places, so it’s a lot of care and meticulousness to make it all seem like it’s all coming off the cuff.” <\/p>\n

So while it’s fun for fans to produce a “best songs of Hamilton<\/a>” list, that’s also a little too macro-level to capture the true beauty of the show. You have to get down to the level of its verses to really appreciate what Miranda wrought \u2014 the internal rhymes<\/a>, the imperfect rhymes<\/a>, all that tongue-twisting alliteration<\/a>, and everything else that makes the show a masterclass in poetry and hip-hop. <\/p>\n

So here, inspired by a Twitter thread on the topic<\/a> and after much deliberation, is my personal top 10 list in reverse order. My rules: No more than one rhyme can represent a song, and a “verse” is loosely defined as the length that a given rhyme continues. If you don’t see your favorite in here, there’s a good chance it was in my top 20. I’d list all of them, but hey, even Hamilton’s obsession had limits. <\/p>\n

10. Bro.<\/strong> <\/h2>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Two Virginians and an immigrant walk into a room<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Diametric’ly opposed, foes<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

They emerge with a compromise, having opened doors that were previously closed<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

(Bros)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u2014 Burr and the chorus, “The Room Where It Happened”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hamilton <\/em>is always effective when we step into the perspective of Aaron Burr, and never more so than when he confronts his jealousy of Hamilton head-on. Just look how many volumes he’s speaking in this tightly-constructed 25 words with four rhymes that echo like an empty room. <\/p>\n

Burr still calls Hamilton an immigrant, despite having just hailed him to his face as “Mr. Secretary.” He’s stressing that there are two Virginians, by which he means cunning, insightful aristocrats. By the numbers, by birth, they should be walking all over the scrappy immigrant. <\/p>\n

But then they emerge with a compromise that gives each side something they want? Foes to bros? How did Hamilton do that<\/em>? The use of “bros” is intentionally anachronistic because it helps us understand what we’re really talking about here. Where do we find the highest percentage of bros in our world? In the frat house. In the private dining room. In the exclusive nightclub. Or any other number of synonyms for secret society<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\n SEE ALSO:<\/span>
\n
\n The Chainsmokers bro would like everyone to stop calling him a bro
\n <\/use><\/svg>
\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n

That’s what is tearing Burr apart: He wants to be a member. He wants to know what happened on the inside so badly that even when Hamilton explains the need to have something that matters<\/em> powering your negotiations \u2014 “when you’ve got skin in the game, you stay in the game” \u2014 Burr is too obsessed to notice his own absence of belief in, um, anything. All he cares about: How did he turn foes into bros? How can I? What are the magic words? <\/em> <\/p>\n

9. State of the Nation<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

I\u00a0know\u00a0the\u00a0action\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0street\u00a0is\u00a0excitin’<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

But\u00a0Jesus,\u00a0between\u00a0all\u00a0the\u00a0bleedin’\u00a0‘n\u00a0fightin’<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

I’ve\u00a0been\u00a0readin’\u00a0‘n\u00a0writin’<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

We need to handle our financial situation<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Are we a nation of states? What\u2019s the state of our nation?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u2014Hamilton, “My Shot”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard to pick just one great rhyme from “My Shot,” a song so dense with them that it took a year to write. But here’s one of the most ambitious verses, and the only one that ties the whole of Hamilton<\/em> together. It reaches back to the opening number to remind us that this kid likes to read, and forward to Act 2 where he’s constantly writing \u2014 on the country’s debt crisis, and whether indeed it is a country at all, or just a loose collection of former colonies. Act 1 will have a lot of excitement, this verse says, but just you wait: the real drama is money. <\/p>\n

Want more about the latest in\u00a0entertainment<\/a><\/em>? Sign up for Mashable’s\u00a0Top Stories newsletter\u00a0<\/a><\/em>today.<\/em><\/p>\n

Also, amidst all those dazzling internal rhymes, note the echo of Burr’s Princeton friend (mentioned just a few minutes earlier on stage) who “handles the financials. In the space of one song, Hamilton has gone from punching the bursar who won’t let him into Princeton to basically filing notice of his intent to become the bursar of the future United States. That makes for a hell of an “I want” song<\/a>. <\/p>\n

8. It’s corsets all the way down<\/strong> <\/h2>\n
\n

Lock\u00a0up\u00a0ya\u00a0daughters\u00a0and\u00a0horses,\u00a0of\u00a0course It’s\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Hard\u00a0to\u00a0have\u00a0intercourse\u00a0over\u00a0four\u00a0sets\u00a0of\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

corsets<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

– Hercules Mulligan, “Aaron Burr, Sir”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The idea behind the trio of rappers introduced at the end of Burr’s first song is that they’re old school, about to be blown away by Hamilton’s polysyllabic dexterity. John Laurens has his super basic posturing “in the place to be” verse. Lafayette is slightly more sophisticated, rapping in French. <\/p>\n

And then there’s Hercules Mulligan, whose flow was inspired by Busta Rhymes and Notorious BIG. The tailor’s apprentice lets loose with a verse that is absolutely filthy, both in the sense of sexual outrage and in the soccer sense of “a filthy nutmeg<\/a>” that bolts through the legs of Hamilton’s big number. <\/p>\n

\n
\n Tweet may have been deleted
\n (opens in a new tab)<\/span>
\n <\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Lin-Manuel Miranda of 2015 would tell you, we have perhaps not commented enough on the fact that a movie now in the Disney canon has a supporting character who suggests he has sex with horses. There is an innocent explanation for the line, but given that “innocent” means that he likes to have sex with daughters in their parents’ houses, then steal their horses for a quick getaway, it is perhaps best not relied upon.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, all gangster bluster. That is revealed in the “four sets of corsets” line, a hilarious exaggeration: No woman in revolutionary America, or anywhere ever, wore four corsets at once. Instead of turning to the subject of booze with “no more sex,” Laurens could have asked: Are you sure<\/em> you’ve been with a woman, Hercules? <\/p>\n

But man, what bluster. The rhyme structure, too, is filthy. The lyrics geniuses on Genius say we’re looking at a “sick double compound” where both lines rhymes internally with themselves and with each other. Placing “intercourse” right in the middle “mirrors the consonance and assonance of the rhyme, like literally reflects it backwards: cors-it<\/em> becomes int-cors<\/em>,” notes one contributor<\/a>. “Sweet Jesus.” <\/p>\n

7. On the pedestal<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Now\u00a0I’m\u00a0the\u00a0model\u00a0of\u00a0a\u00a0modern\u00a0major\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

general<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The\u00a0venerated\u00a0Virginian\u00a0veteran\u00a0whose\u00a0men\u00a0are\u00a0all<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Lining\u00a0up\u00a0to\u00a0put\u00a0me\u00a0up\u00a0on\u00a0a\u00a0pedestal<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u2014George Washington, “Right Hand Man”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This verse, Washington\u2019s first in the show, is Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s answer to Gilbert and Sullivan. The 19th century musical makers gave us the famously tongue-twisty “I am the very model of a Modern Major General” from Pirates of Penzance.<\/em> That song was the gold standard for speedy recitation for more than a century, until Miranda blew past its record with “Guns and Ships.”<\/p>\n

So Miranda pays homage. And at the same time, like Hamilton, he arrogantly asserts superiority. Who else would dare add another line of alliteration to one of the classics? But he’s got the chops: “venerated Virginian veteran” makes this stuff look easy.<\/p>\n

More important is the next line, the show\u2019s one acknowledgment that it too has put Washington on a pedestal. Only once do its lines hint, obliquely, that Washington owned slaves. (“Not yet,” he says sternly to the “black and white soldiers” wondering whether victory at Yorktown “means freedom.”) Chris Jackson, who played the general, added his own wordless hint \u2014 gasping and bowing in apology at the very end of the show when Eliza says “I speak out against slavery.” <\/p>\n

In an age when America is reconsidering the men it has put on pedestals, perhaps we should listen to Washington\u2019s insistence that he never wanted to be there in the first place. We should no longer “embellish his elegance and eloquence” because “the elephant is in the room,” he goes on to say. Veneration is a distraction, then as now, from more urgent facts \u2014 be they British cannons or root-and-branch racism. <\/p>\n

6. Damn, son<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Thomas Jefferson, always hesitant with the President<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Reticent\u2014there isn\u2019t a plan he doesn\u2019t jettison<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Madison, you mad as a hatter, son, take your medicine<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Damn, you\u2019re in worse shape than the national debt is in!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u2014 Hamilton, “Cabinet Battle #1” <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In his first confrontation with cabinet rival Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton is all arrogance. Having explained his financial plan and damned Jefferson as a slave owner who sat out the war, he doesn\u2019t hesitate to stick the boot in by insulting Jefferson and his ally James Madison personally. <\/p>\n

This verse is a verbal victory lap with an astonishing 12 false rhymes in four lines. They take on Jefferson\u2019s (historically accurate) hesitation about whether he wanted to be in politics at all, and Madison\u2019s (also accurate) sickliness; the architect of the Constitution is coughing into his handkerchief at this point. <\/p>\n

To win support for his plan, Hamilton should have stuck with that mic drop of a line about the debt he was trying to fix. Of course, he couldn\u2019t resist stepping over the line as the record scratches out; in the lines that follow, he calls his opponents “two shits” and literally asks to kick their asses. Oh, Alexander. <\/p>\n

\n