Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

A Grade 9 Analysis of the song "Alexander Hamilton" from the musical Hamilton.

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman,

The song opens with a lengthy rhetorical question, suggesting that its subject will be something unintuitive or interesting to find out.

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Hamilton's life story will be almost unbelievable.

The phrase "bastard, orphan, son of a whore" uses tricolor to emphasise the severe obstacles that Hamilton faced to success. It introduces themes of class and parentage.

LMM uses humorous juxtaposition with "Scotsman"...

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...suggesting that have a Scots father is an impediment or a vice to rank alongside "bastard" and "whore".

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dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean

The song's use of assonance becomes prominent here- scOts, drOp, forgOt, spOt.

Assurance is a key linguistic tool in rap music creating rhythm and half-rhymes both internally and at line-ends. Part of the point...

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is to create a display of verbal and linguistic dexterity -- and doing so here sets the tone for Hamilton's life in which his intelligence, rhetoric and cunning enable him to transcend his lowly birth.

"Drop" has two meanings here -- both "born" and "located randomly".

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by Providence, impoverished, in squalor,
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

Juxtaposition is key here -- "providence" and "impoverished", "squalor" and "hero". These antithetical pairs encapsulate Hamilton's life: his humble origins and his rapid rise.

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The assonance on the O sound is carried on: prOvidence, impOverished, squAlor, schOlar.

It adds pace but also suggests a certain relentlessness about Hamilton's character, a gathering energy.

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The ten dollar founding father without a father

"Ten dollar founding father" is an anachronism of course -- he wasn't that when he was alive -- but "dollar" gives a jokey nod to the hip-hop genre, with the humorous twist that ten dollars is not much money.

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"Father" and "father" in this line is almost antanaclasis. "Father" is metaphorical the first time but not the second. As with Shakespeare, we're getting the same message over and over so it's easy to take on board even if the words are overwhelming.

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Founding father = very powerful and important. Without a father = difficult start in life to overcome.

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Got a lot farther by working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter
By being a self-starter
By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter

Homophonic use of "farther". We're onto our second run of assonance: fARther, smARter, stARter, chARge, chARter

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Again, telling us the same thing over and over -- Hamilton was smart and hard-working -- and this quality is mirrored and emphasised by assonance.

You prob don't know what a "trading charter" is but you can figure out it's something that's a big deal for a 14yo to run.

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And every day while slaves were being slaughtered and carted
Away across the waves, he struggled and kept his guard up
Inside, he was longing for something to be a part of
The brother was ready to beg, steal, borrow, or barter

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LMM uses changes in the assonant vowel to signal a new chapter in Hamilton's story. There are two shifts here, first to the AY sound and then to half-rhymes with "slaughtered":
Slaughtered
Guard up
Part of
Brother
Barter

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(this is a thread about language techniques not historical accuracy or politics, but some people think 'Hamilton' gives the founding fathers a bit of an easy ride on the slavery stuff, and the topic seems a bit too much like local flavour here)

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Then a hurricane came, and devastation reigned
Our man saw his future drip, dripping down the drain

Another assonance shift to A sounds for a new part of AH's life.

I enjoy the pun on "reigned" -- "rained" is suggested which links to "drip" in the next line.

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The "devastation" could be Alex's as well as that caused by the hurricane.

This is the first time prominent alliteration is used: Devastation, Drip, Dripping and Drain.

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It would be good to contrast the "drips" of disappointment and frustration with the "waves" that symbolise the wide ocean and later AH's future, but it's a bit weird since waves are now linked to slavery. Hmm.

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Put a pencil to his temple, connected it to his brain
And he wrote his first refrain, a testament to his pain

I'm *really* trying not to use genius.com while writing these tweets, but they do have the excellent suggestion of AH using a PENCIL where

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others might put a gun to their temple.

This line is interesting because it's unnecessary -- we don't really need a line describing how AH gets ready to write -- so it clues the audience that writing is IMPORTANT. AH's ability to convert thoughts into compelling writing

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is what makes him who he is.

There is something interesting happening with the rhyme here. Having built the song so far around assonance and half-rhyme, there is much more obvious and more perfect RHYME here:
rained
drain
brain
refrain
pain

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The emphasise on rhymed, stressed syllables adds a growing sense of urgency and reflects that "pain" that AH experiences.

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Well, the word got around, they said, “This kid is insane, man”
Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland
“Get your education, don’t forget from whence you came, and
The world's gonna know your name. What’s your name, man?”

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Assonance and rhyme are cleverly balanced now:
Insane, man
Mainland
Came, and
Name, man

But also "came" and "name," has that directness that brings power and urgency. We're building up to an important moment!

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If you love Hamilton, you remember the first time you heard this song, and this is the moment you KNEW you were going to love it.

There's a lot of subtlety in how LMM slows the flow of information just enough for the "reveal" of AH himself.

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He ramps up the rap idioms just a bit -- "insane", "don't forget from whence you came" (although "from whence" is technically redundant 🤔), "what's your name?".

Syllables are worth thinking about here. Again, it's quite Shakespearean --
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Polysyllabic words add complexity of imagery, monosyllables drive home key points in an easily digestible way.

Compare:
"Forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor"

With
"Don't forget from whence you came, and the world's gonna know your name"

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🎵Alexander Hamilton🎵

This little line made me think about how rhythm in music and poetry interlink, and are fundamentally different.

In poetry, rhythm is created by the arrangement of words into recurring metrical feet. In music, the rhythm is a steady pulse and words/

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music adhere to it, or syncopate away from it as necessary.

It's very hard to say what the *poetic* metre of this song might be. The pulse of the music is a regular 4/4 but if you locate the stresses in the words you might even say it's iambic pentameter in places.

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how DOES a BAS-tard OR-phan SON of a WHORE

And of course Akala's work on hip hop and Shakespeare has demonstrated how iambic pentameter sits well into the flow of rap.

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Is 🎵Alexander Hamilton🎵 trochaic?

AL-ex-AN-der HAM-il-TON

If it was only verse, not song, you'd say yes.

Or...

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There is a thing called PAEONIC METER. It's more a feature of Classical verse but not common in English.

A PAEON is a metrical foot with one stressed and three unstressed syllables.

In music, essentially that's four semiquavers.

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In music /rap it's very common. In the words of Dr Dre:

I'm ex PRE ssing with my FULL ca pa BI li ties
And now I'm LI ving in cor REC tion al fa CI li ties

It's interesting how those stress patterns seem much more normal when set to a beat...

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But would be very hard to replicate purely in written verse. 1 stressed and 3 unstressed is hard to sustain in English.

So anyway.

AL ex an der HAM il ton

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