Listen to MY SHOT here
In the rich realm of musical theatre, few works boast lyrics as densely packed and linguistically intricate as Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterpiece, Hamilton: An American Musical. While chronicling the life of Alexander Hamilton, a forgotten Founding Father, the musical has achieved universal acclaim. In particular, the song My Shot stands out as a lyrical marvel, showcasing Miranda's unparalleled rhetorical skills.
Devoting a year to crafting this piece, Miranda blends traditional musical theater elements with the rhythm and complexity of hip-hop in My Shot. This song, categorized as a classic 'I want' song, deviates from the norm in its extraordinary approach to 'I want' rhymes, reflecting my rhyme theory in both 'legal' and 'illegal' ways, yet not in any way 'unsatisfying'.
Typically, 'I want' songs feature upfront and catchy lyrics with simple end rhyme schemes, such as repeated and alternating stables (e.g., (a, a, a, a), (a, b, a, b)). Examples demonstrating this conventional approach include The Wizard and I from Wicked, 'This gift or this curse I have inside / Maybe at last I’ll know why / When we are hand in hand— the wizard and I'; and More Than Survive from Be More Chill, 'I don’t wanna be a hero / Just wanna stay in the line / I’ll never be your Rob DeNiro / For me Joe Pesci is fine'. The hip-hop genre is also littered with ‘I want’ songs. In contrast, these songs would start off with long passages of 'rhyme in chains' and 'multi-word rhymes', and then repeat a single phrase as the ‘take-home message’. Examples include Juicy by the Notorious B.I.G., 'Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight / Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade'; and Lose Yourself by Eminem, 'His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy / There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti.'
My Shot ingeniously combines these styles, with Hamilton's verses featuring elaborate internal rhymes and his friends employing perfect repeated stanzas. Hamilton talks about his ideals in long passages using plenty of chain and internal perfect rhymes, changing the schemes as frequently as every two phrases. He also tipped his hat to the Notorious B.I.G. when he spelled out his name ALEXANDER. His friends, on the other hand, talk about their ideals in perfect repeated stables--
Hamilton: Every burden, every disadvantage I have learned to manage / I don't have a gun to brandish I walk these streets famished / The plan is to fan this spark into a flame / But damn, it's getting dark, so let me spell out my name…
Lafayette: I dream of life without a monarchy / The unrest in France will lead to onarchy / Onarchy? how you say, how you, oh, anarchy! / When I fight, I make the other side panicky...
The audience is dazzled by the ‘knowledge’ Hamilton ‘dropped with every word’, yet we are not able to easily neglect his friends’ desire and demand, because they are conveyed with steady, emphasized rhyme schemes. Miranda skillfully employs these distinct rhyme schemes to delineate the characters. Hamilton emerges as an energized, eloquent show-off, delivering ten-plus lines of rapid-fire rhymes. Meanwhile, his friends' stability is reflected in their simpler, repetitive rhyme structures, grounding Hamilton's exuberance.
The synergy between rhyme, melody, and character development is striking. Hamilton's verses, filled with rolling rhymes and forward motion, convey a sense of urgency and determination, as if Hamilton is 'running out of time' and trying to race through the song. The basis of the drum beat also sometimes lands on the upbeat and anchor on the downbeat, adding to the non-stop, racing feel. When his friends talk in simpler rhymes, the melody line tuned down to a simple, repetitive motion with more listing structure. When Aaron Burr said ‘geniuses, lower your voices’, the accompaniment turned quiet and monophonic. These musical activities suggest that his friends are more stable and reliable, keeping Hamilton’s feet on the ground. This rhyme-music-character consistency offers a satisfying notion.
The perfect internal rhyme chains within Hamilton's rap verses are particularly gratifying for choosy listeners like me. Responding to his friends' repeated stables, Hamilton started to rap in a similar way, only more densely on the ‘aa’ syllable, on alliteration, and on other internal rhyme scheme--
Hamilton: Burr, check what we got / Mister Lafayette, hard rock like Lancelot / I think your pants look hot / Laurens, I like you a lot / Let’s hatch a plot blacker than the kettle callin' the pot / What are the odds the gods would put us all in one spot / Poppin’ a squat on conventional wisdom, like it or not…
These rhymes further established his image as an eager overachiever, and coincide with my theory about musical theatre having the most perfect rhymes despite written with a hip-hop touch.
The recurring, chorus-like passage throughout the song, ‘I am not throwin' away my shot / I am not throwin' away my shot / Hey yo, I'm just like my country / I’m young, scrappy and hungry / And I'm not throwin' away my shot’, challenges traditional rhyme conventions. It is an illegal way of rhyming according to my rhyme theory, because it did not end on a rhyme. However, the discontent is softened by its reiteration and the hip-hop style 'take-home message'. This phrase is very liftable (meaning that it would make sense outside of the frame of the song). In addition, ‘I'm just like my country / I’m young, scrappy and hungry’ is very well-rhymed. ‘Young’ corresponds with the first syllable in ‘country’, ‘scrappy’ corresponds with the second, and ‘hungry’ corresponds with both. Melodically, it also acts as the perfect antecedent to the consequent phrase *‘And I'm not throwin' away my shot’*, forming a front-loaded antecedent-consequent and putting even more emphasis on the strong, short consequent. This same chorus also repeated several times throughout the song, while the passages in between constantly change rhyme schemes. It serves as a melodic and thematic anchor, emphasizing the resolve conveyed in ‘And I'm not throwin' away my shot.’
In the powerful rhymes of My Shot, interwoven with dynamic music, Hamilton's intellect and flaws propel the narrative. If there is one song that encapsulates the essence of the entire musical, My Shot would be THE song.