If you read my decade-in-review post back in January, you might remember that I listed falling in love with Hamilton as one of my highlights of the 2010s. At some point during our shared, all-consuming obsession, one of my sisters said, "Hey, I've made a list of my top ten favorite Hamilton songs. You should do it too, and then we'll compare them."
Make a list? About Hamilton? Don't mind if I do. I started a note in my phone, and I believe the first draft included about twenty five songs. For reference, there are forty-six songs in the show. I couldn't even narrow them down to my favorite 50%.
Now here we are a couple years later. Watching the original cast movie on Disney+ has reignited all my Ham love, so I dug out my list and tried to get it down to a more reasonable number.
My primary judging criteria are as follows:
Is it fun to sing? (thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda for putting most of it within my vocal range)
Does it make me feel deeply? (all the sad ones did really well, obviously)
Does it contain clever wordplay? (I mean, they all do, so that metric is kind of useless)
Here we go!
10. Cabinet Battles #1 and #2
I'm already cheating and putting two songs into one slot. But they are like two parts of a whole, so why not? My very favorite parts are "we know who's really doing the planting", "you don't have the votes", Madison quietly muttering "...France", and "uh, do whatever you want; I'm super dead."
9. Election of 1800
Here's a song that's great for car singing. Plenty of times I've been driving to the grocery store, begging Alexander to tell me who to vote for at the top of my lungs:
Jefferson or Burr? we know it's lose-lose
Jefferson or Burr? but if you had to choose
Dear Mr. Hamilton
John Adams doesn't stand a chance, so who are you promoting?
The build up is so good, and then Hamilton finally answers with an excellent burn against Burr:
I have never agreed with Jefferson once (oh!)
We have fought on like seventy-five different fronts (oh!)
But when all is said and all is done
Jefferson has beliefs,
Burr has none (ooh!)
Also, Jefferson's "whaaaaat?..." at the suggestion that he seek Hamilton's endorsement is one of my favorite single lines in the whole show.
8. Dear Theodosia
This is the sweetest lullaby ever.
I'll do whatever it takes
I'll make a million mistakes
I'll make the world safe and sound for you
7. The Room Where It Happens
I liked this song but didn't love it until I sang it at a Hamilton karaoke night a couple years ago. It is so fun to sing it and pretend that you are a fraction as talented as Leslie Odom Jr.
6. Satisfied
I didn't include My Shot on my favorites list, though it is obviously a great song. I once heard Lin describe My Shot as Alexander's "I want" song. Well, this is Angelicas's "I want" song, and the heartbreaking part is that a woman in her time typically didn't get nearly as much latitude with how she used her shot. She is stifled by gender roles, restrained by loyalty to her sister, and ultimately she concludes, "I will never be satisfied." But at least it's really fun to try to keep up with her as she raps and sings about it.
5. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story
I absolutely love that Eliza gets the last word. She stayed at home and raised their eight children (no small feat there) while Hamilton followed his ambition, built a career, and literally helped create a country. But her list of accomplishments in the years following his death is wildly impressive as well. Eliza got some crap done.
4. Burn
During my very first time listening to the cast recording of Hamilton, I had a friend who was feeling heartbroken over her ongoing divorce, so I thought of her as I listened to Eliza sing about her own broken heart. I was standing in my kitchen, listening to the words, and my tears dropped onto the countertop. When Phillipa Soo's raw voice says, "you, you, you...", it basically rips your heart right out and sets it on fire along with Alexander's stupid letters.
3. It's Quiet Uptown
This is another heart wrenching song that stopped me in my tracks. I was making my bed and I heard these lyrics:
The moments when you're in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down
The Hamiltons move uptown
And learn to live with the unimaginable
I rewound to the beginning and stood still while I listened to the whole song. Crying again.
When I did that Hamilton karaoke, everyone got an allotment of points. Meatier parts were worth more points, and smaller parts cost just a point or two each. I realized that nobody had signed up yet for Quiet Uptown, and I was about to snatch it when I remembered that I had never sang it without getting choked up. I decided that I'd rather not sob in front of a bunch of strangers at a bar, so I passed. On karaoke night, when we got to that point in the show, the host said, "Yeah, nobody signed up to sing Quiet Uptown, because, well, you know..." and we moved on to the Election of 1800.
2. Alexander Hamilton
This one is near the top of the list because it's the first thing you hear, and it makes you stop short and go, "Wait a minute, this is a different kind of thing than I've ever heard before." We did an impromptu sing along of this in my parents' kitchen the night we told them we had bought them Hamilton tickets for Christmas, and it was the best thing ever.
1. Non Stop
Non-Stop has so much going on. Lin called it an "all skate", and I love that description. Almost everyone gets a share, and I can't help but sing all the parts myself, even though it's kind of impossible since they all overlap.
All the pieces of the story so far are shifting into new places. There are callbacks to the music and/or lyrics from at least 9 previous songs (Wait for it, That Would Be Enough, Right Hand Man, The Schuyler Sisters, Helpless, Satisfied, History Has Its Eyes On You, My Shot, and Alexander Hamilton).
You can sense Burr's bemusement and tolerance of Hamilton turning to a simmering jealousy/irritation/rage as the song goes on. You can really feel it when he growls "Hamilton wrote THE OTHER FIFTY-ONE!".
You could probably ask me for my top ten a week from now, and it would look different. All the other songs are loosely slotted, and some might even fall off the list, but not this one. This stays number one.
Honorable mention
The World Was Wide Enough contains so much malice and sadness and regret, especially "this man will not make an orphan of my daughter", Ham's death soliloquy, and Burr's quiet lament.
Now I'm the villain in your history
I was too young and blind to see
I should've known
I should've known the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me
One of my kids has a really good voice but absolutely will not share it with the world. No church choir, no school talent show, nothing. Once we were in the car when One Last Time came on, and we started singing together. Our voices blended really well, and when we pulled into the driveway we stayed in the car long enough to finish the song. That last note is satisfyingly beltable, and we gave it our all. It's a good memory.
The staging of this show is amazing, and I loved a bunch of songs much more once I saw them in motion. Hurricane is so well done. The whole stage swirls around, and the lighting makes it seem like it's getting swallowed up with water. The Reynolds Pamphlet is what my sister describes as "glorious chaos" with paper flying everywhere, and Jefferson prancing around, gleefully telling Alexander that he's "never gon' be president now". It's deliciously petty.
And in Your Obedient Servant, the barrage of Alexander's correspondence is just flowing across the stage to Burr and finally brings him to his breaking point.
And one more honorable mention that isn't even in the show: a cut scene called Congratulations. Check it out; it's fun!
What do you think? Is my list the worst because it leaves out both Yorktown and Guns and Ships? And how could I possibly not include Wait For It? I would love to debate this with other Ham fans, but just remember that Non-Stop is number one and I won't budge on that.
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