The Story of Tonight

Hamilton and his friends are young, hale, and full of zeal to help build a new, more ideal world. They pledge their allegiance to the cause of freedom in a literal call and echo, and they dream of winning glory on the battlefield and securing their plaque on the honor wall of history.

It’s a timeless rallying cry. “I may not live to see our glory” is similar to MLK’s “I may not get there with you" line in “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (1968). People have also noticed similarities to Churchill’s Their Finest Hour speech (1940) and even further back to the St. Crispin’s Day speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V (c. 1599):

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Washington, who was a father figure to many of these bright young men, echoes and tempers the brashness of this drinking ditty during “History Has It’s Eyes On You.”

Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory:
You have no control:
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story

However, in Hamilton’s case, his wish that “our children tell our story” actually comes true. In real life, his son John Church Hamilton wrote his father’s biography. Moreover, metafictionally, in performing this Broadway show, Lin-Manuel Miranda and their other metaphorical descendants (“children”) are indeed telling the story of that night.

These lines, along with “Tomorrow there’ll be more of us” end up as Laurens' last lines in his death scene

A bit of a compositional pun here, as the three repeat “let’s have another round tonight” one after another as if they were beginning to sing a musical round while in the process of getting another round of drinks. The joke is a little funnier if you know that rounds are mostly popular with the very young or the very drunk.

Rounds are also what you load into a gun, showing the young revolutionists' eager attitude towards a fight.

Perhaps a reference to “Drink with Me” from Les Miserables, where a similar group of war-bound men toast to their youth and the promise of a better future.

Of course, coming from the fervent abolitionist John Laurens, he may also be asking his friends to “raise a glass to freedom” for slaves.

“Raise a glass to freedom” is also Alexander’s last line in “The World Was Wide Enough”, the last line before his death. This motif abides with one of Laurens’s line before his death, which was Hamilton’s “I may not live to see our glory”- the first line of this song- sung in the “Laurens interlude”.
Hamilton and Laurens sung each other’s lines before their deaths, symbolizing their more exclusive relationship aside from their other two friends, Mulligan and Lafayette.

English philosopher John Locke’s ideas about Natural Rights being God-given were all the rage during this time period among the revolutionary set.

Locke wrote that Freedom (aka Liberty) was something that could be restricted but never stripped from a human being, since it’s essentially part of our nature.

For more practical application of Locke’s ideas in 1776, check out the Declaration of Independence. (But don’t act surprised you guys, Jefferson stole them!)

In Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda reveals that he wrote this song’s melody at age 16. It was called “I’ve Got a Bridge to Sell You”, and the titular line is replaced here with the similar line “No matter what they tell you”.

There is a small historical inaccuracy here. Since this song is set in 1776, Hamilton would not have met Lafayette and Laurens as of yet. He met Mulligan around this time, however, and boarded with him shortly after reaching New York. Hamilton met Laurens and Lafayette a few years later, during the war.

Historically, this song would have gone, “Raise a glass to the two of us.”

Of course, these men first meet in “Aaron Burr, Sir,” so the inaccuracy starts there.

A motto that echoes a sentiment expressed across many hip-hop songs: “Real niggas don’t die, we multiply.”

In the moment, this is our four friends toasting each other and the growing numbers of their comrades in the revolution.

However, it also takes on slightly more meaning for Laurens and his ultimate dream for an all-black battalion. At Laurens' death between “Dear Theodosia” and “Non-Stop,” this dream “dies with him,” and we get a mournful reprise: the interlude is called “Tomorrow There’ll Be More Of Us.”

Which they do—in histories, biographies (Chernow!), and musical theatre.

Perhaps a reference to “Drink with Me” from Les Miserables, where a similar group of war-bound men toast to their youth and the promise of a better future.

Of course, coming from the fervent abolitionist John Laurens, he may also be asking his friends to “raise a glass to freedom” for slaves.

“Raise a glass to freedom” is also Alexander’s last line in “The World Was Wide Enough”, the last line before his death. This motif abides with one of Laurens’s line before his death, which was Hamilton’s “I may not live to see our glory”- the first line of this song- sung in the “Laurens interlude”.
Hamilton and Laurens sung each other’s lines before their deaths, symbolizing their more exclusive relationship aside from their other two friends, Mulligan and Lafayette.

English philosopher John Locke’s ideas about Natural Rights being God-given were all the rage during this time period among the revolutionary set.

Locke wrote that Freedom (aka Liberty) was something that could be restricted but never stripped from a human being, since it’s essentially part of our nature.

For more practical application of Locke’s ideas in 1776, check out the Declaration of Independence. (But don’t act surprised you guys, Jefferson stole them!)

In Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda reveals that he wrote this song’s melody at age 16. It was called “I’ve Got a Bridge to Sell You”, and the titular line is replaced here with the similar line “No matter what they tell you”.

A bit of a compositional pun here, as the three repeat “let’s have another round tonight” one after another as if they were beginning to sing a musical round while in the process of getting another round of drinks. The joke is a little funnier if you know that rounds are mostly popular with the very young or the very drunk.

Rounds are also what you load into a gun, showing the young revolutionists' eager attitude towards a fight.

In this last section, Hamilton and Laurens are singing together about the legacy they will leave. This shows the connection between the two and how they became such close friends. They both wanted to change the world and leave with something for the world to remember them by. This is, also, slight foreshadowing as it shows who we get to see die in the play and how their legacies play out on stage.