Today, 13/5/18, is the day of the next instalment of Song Of The Week Sunday - where I will be sharing a piece of music that I listened to more than any other during the space of the previous. In this instance, from week beginning 7/5/18 and ending today, 13/5/18, the song I listened to the most was the following:
First Burn by Arianna Afsar, Julia Harriman, Lexi Lawson, Rachelle Ann Go
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ys-AimNbE
I have been actively discussing this new Hamildrop with my friends and fellow fans of Hamilton, Emma and Ammie since it came out. Hell, I was at the breakfast table when I played this song for the first time and Emma and I just gaped at the lyrics.
Discussing the pain and power behind the lyrics that didn't make it into the final cut of the musical was interesting as it demonstrated how clever Lin-Manuel Miranda was with his creations!
Not only was this piece powerful, but this song is very important to me, as a writer and a creator of content. First Burn is, in essence, an earlier draft of Burn from Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. This was an incredible insight into the writing process of the writer. It was amazing to get such a glaring view into what Burn could have sounded like.
Not only is this song super catchy and addictive to listen to, you get great insight into how the rest of the musical could have been by the lyrics and delivery by the five actresses, all who play the role of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton in one current version of Hamilton: An American Musical. This version of a song which, prior to the start of the month, was associated with Eliza being helpless and heartbroken as she was forced to acknowledge her husband's infidelity, has a completely different attitude.
In Burn, Eliza is low, crushed and reacting out of sadness. Her heart is broken. Her primary emotion is upset, although she is depicted to be angry when she repeats "you" three times in succession toward the end of the song. She is crushed to know her husband slept with another woman, but in Its Quiet Uptown, Eliza finds it in herself to forgive her husband for his misdeeds.
However, in First Burn, Eliza is resentful and angry. She is frustrated with what Alexander did. She "can't be trusted" around her husband. This line is a double meaning; in which Eliza cannot trust herself to not lash out, but she also doesn't trust herself to stay angry about what happened. This song is spiteful and vengeful, Eliza is furious that after everything that has happened between the pair, Alexander has betrayed her by sleeping with Maria Reynolds.
What does this mean for Lin-Manuel Miranda's drafts? One can imply that if Eliza was so angry and upset by the affair, which was exposed to "protect [Alexander's] legacy", it may have been harder for viewers to believe that after Philip Hamilton, their oldest son, had died due to George Eaker disparaging the Hamilton legacy and the subsequent duel, Eliza would be forgiving.
It demonstrates that sometimes, perfectly good explorations and expressions of work are not always going to make their ways into the final draft of a piece, no matter how amazing they are. Sometimes things need to change for the sake of the bigger picture:
Eliza erased herself from the narrative in Burn, she forgave Alexander in Its Quiet Uptown and then finally put herself back in the narrative in Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story.
Her character arc could have been skewed if she had been as aggressive as First Burn implied her reaction was, and so the decision was probably made to start adjusting the lyrics to create the version we all know and love!
Thank you for reading!
And remember:
Per Ardua Ad Astra!
- Imogen. L. Smiley
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