Post by harmonyking1185 on Dec 17, 2016 22:30:17 GMT
As you know, I'm a huge theater nerd, so my favorite song is naturally gonna be a broadway one. While a lot are really good, I would have to choose "Say No to This" from Hamilton as my favorite. However, that's not from a music standpoint. The tune of the song is catchy, but nothing horribly unique. What really makes me love this song is how effortlessly it tells a story and how many layers are in it. For background knowledge, Hamilton is at this point married to Eliza Schuyler. However, as he stated in "Satisfied", Hamilton is never truly satisfied with life. He meets Maria Reynolds, and she convinces him to sleep with her, a decision Hamilton regrets but cannot convince himself to stop. This shows how Hamiltons character knows what he should and shouldn't do at any moment. He really is a good guy at heart, he is just too impulsive to actually control himself when he reaches a difficult decision. But like I mentioned earlier, this isn't just a story of a guy cheating on his wife. When Maria's husband reveals that he knows about her relationship with Alexander, he gets upset at her for revealing their secret. She responds by saying, "Please don't leave me, I am helpless". Here she is appealing to Hamiltons good natured heart, but the line goes deeper than that. The song Eliza sang when she first met Hamilton was "Helpless", and was all about her "love at first sight" with him. By choosing that particular wording, Lin-Manuel Miranda draws the comparison in Alexanders mind between Maria, his mistress, and Eliza, his wife. Hamilton sees the two as both needing him, so although he knows it is wrong he continues seeing them anyway. I also love how this song leads so easily into the rest of the story. The next major conflict, the Reynolds Pamphlet, is a direct result of this song, as Maria's husband John reveals their relationship and effectively forces Hamilton to show it to the whole world. As this is such a big scandal, it squanders Alexanders previously high chance of ever becoming president. Without needing any non-musical assistance, the song tells an entire story on its own of a man who tries to stop but can't, and the horrible consequences that come out of it. It's really a masterpiece of writing on many different levels.