America Sings for You

The Hamilton FB page posted a better version of the Grammy performance than the one I had seen. I mean, okay, I watched it on TV too,  but I wanted to see it again and again, you know. Anyway, while I was grabbing the link to see it again, I started reading some of the comments.

A lot of people were new to Hamilton. Their first exposure to the show was the Grammy performance and they were so blown away by it that they bought the album, had been listening to it for the last several days, and suddenly understood what this was all about. One woman said she'd even bought tickets a while back for her daughter, but had her go with a friend because she saw no reason to see some 'silly rap musical.' Since she's been exposed to the album, she's come to deeply regret missing her chance to see it.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any work of art that has hit people this way. It's like a tidal wave of different forces slamming into people all at once. Suddenly people who never took hip hop seriously understand there is a depth and power to it. People who dismissed musical theater understand how significantly it can move them. People who never gave a rat's ass about American history, especially not about some random Founding Father, find themselves passionately learning everything they can about this chapter in the story of our country.

As I've written before, I never thought much about Alexander Hamilton. I certainly didn't care about Aaron Burr. Now I see their dynamic playing out in so many relationships. Alexander Hamilton's story says so much about growing up poor, growing up smart, growing up with drive and facing those moments when people from the upper classes try to push you back down. Burr's decades of seething, bitter jealousy are sadly a common experience for a lot of people.

So here we are, over 200 years later, and people are identifying with, empathizing with, and being inspired by a brilliant, bastard immigrant who wrote and fought so that we could become a country. And on a Grammy's show where a lot of kids were watching to see the usual Top 40 acts, they saw a performance that struck a chord deep inside many of them. Kids of today, connecting with a guy who was 19 when we declared independence. Wow.