What’d I Miss

This is the first song of the second act, and the Company is still getting back into gear with the use of a popular hip hop motif. This is sort of a vocal version of scratching. Scratching occurs elsewhere in the show both in the orchestration, and in other lyrics. For instance, in “Non-Stop,” Hamilton’s first line is:

A-After the war I went back to New York

Here the lyrics are once again playing on the opening of the first song of the first act, “Alexander Hamilton.” However, musically, things have gotten much more involved. The audience is fully engaged in the show now and does not need to be introduced to the world, and the music reflects that by jumping back in, more complex than ever.

The piano underneath this new reprise incorporates not one, but two musical themes: the bass piano line we first heard in “Alexander Hamilton,” and the woah-woah-woah line from “My Shot.” It’s very fitting for Burr’s narration, which summarizes Hamilton’s origins, his success in war, and his entry into politics. The music has evolved because Hamilton himself has evolved—a development not entirely to Burr’s liking. To reflect his own increasingly complicated feelings about Hamilton, Burr’s rapping has taken on a less straightforward, more syncopated rhythm.

This adaptation in the score helps to signify both that time has passed within the play since the first act, and that the morality and motivations of our characters will evolve and complicate dramatically in the second act.

This is the start of a quick change in cadence as Burr delivers these next few verses with a tone of disbelief, almost asking, “How can assuming debt unite the colonies?”. He teases the audience with what’s to follow in the next song, “Secretary Hamilton’s plan to assume state debt and establish a national bank.”

Foreshadowing what happens in Act II. Some of the most significant battles that Hamilton has are with Jefferson. Interestingly, Jefferson placed two busts, a likeness of himself and his political opponent Alexander Hamilton, opposite one another in Monticello’s Hall. Both were modeled by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi in Philadelphia in 1793 and 1794. One of Jefferson’s grandchildren said:

“the eye settled with a deeper interest on busts of Jefferson and Hamilton, by Ceracchi, placed on massive pedestals on each side of the main entrance—'opposed in death as in life,‘ as the surviving original sometimes remarked, with a pensive smile, as he observed the notice they attracted.”

Alexander Hamilton Bust (Sculpture) — Monticello

Artist/Maker: Unknown after Giuseppe Ceracchi (1744-1801) Created: 1794 Origin/Purchase: Philadelphia Materials: marble Dimensions: 61 x 33 x 24.1 (24 x 13 x 9 1/2 in.) Location: Entrance Hall Provenance: Uriah or Jefferson Monroe Levy; currently not believed have belonged to Jefferson Accession Number: 1923-12 Historical Notes: Jefferson placed two busts, a likeness of himself and his political opponent Alexander Hamilton, opposite one another in the Entrance Hall.

During the course of the second act Hamilton is at the height of his career; he has power in the American government, support from George Washington, is able to pass his financial plan and his family is thriving.

However he also loses everything in this act; his political power, his reputation, his son, his marriage and most importantly, his life.

This also relates to “Wait For It”, when Burr reflects that Hamilton has nothing to lose-this is not true anymore; Hamilton has it all and will lose it all now.

This is an aside for the audience, as this song starts the second act. He is in effect asking the audience if they’re ready for more of the show after their 15 minute break from the action.

Incidentally, over that intermission, the half-built brick walls on the stage grow about half a foot to a “more perfect” set. It’s the unfinished symphony, getting more notes written down!

Burr is refreshing the memory of the audience, and setting the backdrop to which Jefferson will be returning to. This also plays a semi-important role in Washington’s relationship with Hamilton. You see Washington as the president and Hamilton as the Secretary of Treasury when Act 1 ends, and you see the same duo appear in Act 2. This shows a loyal bond between Washington and Hamilton, expressed in “Right Hand Man”, “Cabinet Battle 2”, and “Washington On Your Side”.

Leading up to his inauguration, Washington noted, “I walk on untrodden ground.” George Washington wisely understood that every one of his actions would ultimately set a precedent for his successors.

Some events in Act II deal with this: appointing advisers himself instead of obtaining “advice and consent” of the Senate, gathering a cabinet to handle any issues the new country dealt with, and at the very last, stepping down after only two terms instead of holding the post for far longer.

This is the second time that the phrase “American experiment” is used. The first time was in “Yorktown,” when Hamilton led his troops into battle under Washington. This could be a forewarning of the battles Hamilton will have to face in peacetime.

The first two American political parties were Hamilton’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans (now often simply referred to as Republicans).

Speaking of precedent, to this day, America has two primary parties, forcing its governing branch to operate on a majority/minority binary of “partisan” politics. This is arguably Hamilton’s worst contribution to the American nation.

This bit is particularly ironic since Hamilton got the first word in on the evils of a “partisan” system in The Federalist Papers (Federalist No. 9)… promptly followed by Madison (of the Democratic-Republicans!) in Federalist No. 10.

In this line, and the above line “You ready for more yet,” Burr breaks to fourth wall to reaffirm his role as narrator. This could also be directed at Hamilton, who meets Jefferson in this number.

Additionally, this line employs a level of misdirection in the sense that the audience has indeed met Jefferson in a more concrete sense through the actor playing him, Daveed Diggs, who plays Marquis de Lafayette in the first act. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Diggs explains the double casting:

It was conceived that way. Lin always said that it was because we had to meet these people fresh in the second act so you want to hopefully have the audience have already fallen in love with the actor so you don’t have to build up a relationship with the new character. You don’t have to spend as much time doing that.

Jefferson was assigned by the Congress of the Confederation in 1784 to serve alongside Ben Franklin and John Adams as a minister plenipotentiary to Europe, where he was responsible for negotiating commercial treaties. When Franklin left France in 1785, Jefferson succeeded him as minister to France.

Towards the end of his five years in France, he witnessed the beginnings of the French Revolution, and even allowed his residence, Hôtel de Langeac, to be used by Lafayette and his fellow liberals to discuss a new constitution.

Jefferson brought more than just Enlightenment ideas home with him: he also had eighty-six boxes shipped stateside. Among those items included a macaroni machine. He later had pasta and parmesan cheese imported to Monticello. He even had macaroni and cheese served at the White House during his presidency, in 1802. Although he didn’t invent the stuff, he certainly helped popularize it in America.

In addition to being a great rhyme with “Thomas,” the phrase “American promise” is inexorably tied with the Civil Rights movement, due to an historic speech by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

The purpose of the speech was to introduce the Voting Rights Act, and it framed racial voting equality as a fundamental component of American democracy.

Ironically, Jefferson and his fellow Democratic-Republicans would not have agreed with this idea in the slightest. Their anti-abolitionist views often extended to the notion that even free black individuals should not have the same voting rights as whites. This manifested as various forms of overt disenfranchisement, such as maintaining land ownership as a voting requirement for black men when it was lifted for white men.

Johnson’s speech was a vicious indictment of the lingering forms of disenfranchisement that still existed some 140 years later. Thanks to the Supreme Court repealing much of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, those forms of disenfranchisement exist again today.

This is another sly reference to Jefferson’s hypocrisy and double standards about freedom.

The line reinforces Jefferson’s position as a member of the nascent American aristocracy.

In cotillion balls and debutante balls, where the elite can meet one another, newcomers can be introduced to the local power players who they “simply must meet” if they want to get ahead in the community.

Together with this, the use of the first name rather than the full name, or “Mister Jefferson”, creates a thing where you are meeting someone powerful who is asking you to call them by their first name, to simulate closeness.

It’s a very semiotically rich line.

Thomas Jefferson’s home was Monticello. Designed and redesigned, built and rebuilt for more than forty years, its gardens were a botanist’s dream. 43 rooms, 19 foot entryway and estimated at a value of $6300 in 1800 money. Just about everything Jefferson did had some level of genius and magnificence to it, and his home no less so.

As another layer of meaning, Jefferson was born in the U.S. (his “home”)—in other words, not an immigrant like Hamilton.

Thomas Jefferson really did live in Paris from August of 1784 to September of 1789. Jefferson was sent to Paris by Congress to join the two other American Ministers who were then in France – Benjamin Franklin and John Adams – and further the cause of the American people to the French court.

This part of the song melodically falls really hard and really fast into the P Funk genre, which means it is very 70s. It finds inspiration in the disco and psychedelic movements, integrates early electronic soundscapes, includes elements of orchestral rock and old-school jazz, and features melodic hooks and lyrics that sound like sex itself walking onto the dance floor in a slightly spacey and very enticing outfit.

Original Jefferson and Diggs as Jefferson

The original casting call for Jefferson:

MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE/THOMAS JEFFERSON: Tenor-baritone, must be able to sing and rap well. […] JEFFERSON is relaxed, jazzy, brilliant, whose effortless cool is ruffled only by Hamilton. Harold Hill meets Drake.

In the original Broadway cast, Jefferson was played by Daveed Diggs.

The success of the American Revolution inspired Revolutionary fervor throughout Europe. Contemporary observers, including English preacher Richard Price, expected the French Revolution to be the second domino on the way to spreading Enlightenment-inspired government throughout Europe:

Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom, and writers in its defense! The times are auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Behold kingdoms, admonished by you, starting from sleep, breaking their fetters, and claiming justice from their oppressors! Behold, the light you have struck out, after setting America free, reflected to France, and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes, and warms and illuminates EUROPE!

Maybe “The World Turned Upside Down” in the last act, but there’s still shit to do. Get to work.

Lafayette, with major input from Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the “Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” It was a significant document leading to the French Revolution. Jefferson drew on the Virginia Declaration of Rights and, naturally, the American Declaration of Independence, as sources.

This line also serves as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that the characters of Jefferson and Lafayette are both played by Daveed Diggs.

Interestingly enough, Jefferson manages to avoid TWO revolutionary wars in this play. Drafting declarations, then getting outta town seems to be his M.O….

“More than any historic home in America, Monticello speaks to me as an expression of the personality of its builder," said FDR upon visiting Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, Virginia. The house is an accurate reflection of the brilliant, cosmopolitan, contradictory (and often hypocritical) man who built it.

Jefferson designed Monticello

to accommodate…[Jefferson’s] boundless collections of books, European art, Native American artifacts, natural specimens and mementos from his travels. Monticello was also filled with Jefferson’s unique—and often ingenious—inventions. These included a revolving bookstand, a copying machine, a spherical sundial and a toenail clipper, among dozens of other devices.

Monticello is considered a paradigm of neoclassical architecture, a style that came to dominate the new U.S. Capitol. This architecture was meant to evoke classical Greek and Roman ideas about democracy, self-rule, and resistance to tyrants.

But of course, Monticello was also a slave plantation, where Jefferson held approximately 130 human beings in bondage (including Sally Hemmings, mentioned in this song).

Historically, Jefferson was preparing to begin work not only on his home of the new United States, but also on his house in Virginia, Monticello.

Jefferson, a self-taught and well-regarded architect, drafted the blueprints for Monticello’s property and was personally invested in its development. After overseeing construction on his first design of the house from 1769-1784, Jefferson left for France. The French neoclassical styles he saw in Europe inspired new directions for his ongoing “essay in architecture,” including a new octogonal dome roof and a single-story facade (masking a three-story house). Jefferson likely began planning for the redesign during his time serving in Washington’s cabinet, though construction did not begin until 1796. Construction continued throughout his time as Vice-President and President, being completed in time for his retirement in 1809.

In addition to showcasing his refined architectural tastes, the property’s design allowed Jefferson to both conceal and monitor the other work being done at Monticello—that of the hundreds of slaves he owned. The constant presence of slaves was made invisible to guests through a system of underground tunnels, dumbwaiters, and revolving doors, while the long terrace outside Jefferson’s bedroom would allow him to look out over the slaves' living quarters and various plantation industries.

By 1789, the year of this song, Jefferson began plans to shift from growing tobacco at Monticello to growing wheat. The slaves were thus retrained to create a hierarchical workforce of “millers, mechanics, carpenters, smiths, spinners, coopers, and plowmen.” His ambitious project to modernize and industrialize slavery successfully transformed the forced labor of slaves, including children, into profit to fund Jefferson’s extravagant lifestyle and architectural projects, including Monticello itself.

The war, Thomas. You missed the entire war.

At this line, Jefferson breaks from being a staid statesman and shows us his “relaxed, jazzy” nature. This refrain takes place over the opening of a twelve-bar blues chord progression, complete with the archetypal twelve-bar blues walking bass.

See “Boogie Woogie” by Professor Longhair, included in Alex Lacamoire’s HAMthology playlist of inspirational songs.

The boogie woogie, rock n' roll style of Jefferson’s introductory song may also be a reference to the early sounds of the rock n' roll genre, and to iconic figures like Elvis who helped to popularize what was originally, derisively considered “black music.” It was yet another moment in history where white guys were able to step in and make bank off of foundations built by black America.

“Home, sweet home” is an idiom most familiar to American audiences from Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” but it actually originated in a song in a musical staged in 1823. That same song also was the source of Dorothy’s “there’s no place like home” catchphrase, which of course also made it onto Broadway in Wicked. It’s not just Hamilton—Broadway musicals have been referencing each other for a long time.

After all, Virginia is for Lovers.

One of whom was Angelica Schuyler Church. The two met frequently in Paris, as her husband worked as a US Envoy to France alongside Minister Jefferson. Even after he returned to America, the two would keep up a steady and intimate correspondence for many years.

This has led some historians to suspect she was romantically tied to Jefferson as well as Hamilton. It also leads some Hamilton fans to wonder whether she ever compelled him to include women in the sequel.

She never did, despite the aforementioned correspondence. Indeed, when she discussed another major founding document with him, he responded as such:

You see by the papers, and I suppose by your letters also, how much your native state has been agitated by the question on the new Constitution. But that need not agitate you. The tender breasts of ladies were not formed for political convulsion; and the French ladies miscalculate much their own happiness when they wander from the true field of their influence into that of politicks.

In other words, “That’s adorable, but you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about these manly political things.”

Daveed Diggs' Thomas Jefferson is an amalgam of Prince and The Time’s Morris Day (and, perhaps Little Richard), pop stars from the 1980s. So this line—referring to the late 1780s—is also a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the late 1980s.

Jefferson’s vision of what encompasses the world here is rather limited: his version of “the wide, wide world” is just Western Europe. He totally ignores four other populated continents. Not saying he ignores Africa, Asia, and South America because they’re full of people of color, but yes, yes, I am saying that. 100%.

Washington sent Jefferson a letter in October of 1789. It’s marked as being received by Jefferson at his brother-in-law’s home, Eppington, in December of that same year.

Susan Stein, in The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, writes about Jefferson “shopping for a lifetime” in France. He bought furniture, kitchen utensils, candlesticks, teapots, tablecloths, fabric and many other items. When he eventually arrived back in America, he would have 86 packing crates shipped to him from Paris.

By the time this scene takes place, Jefferson’s wife, Martha, had been dead for some time, leaving his slave and mistress, Sally Hemings the de facto woman of the house. By calling her “darling,” he’s betraying the fact that he has a much closer relationship with her than with any of his other slaves.

Sally Hemings (c.1773-1835) came into Jefferson’s possession after his marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. Sally, like all of the Hemingses, was Martha’s half-sibling, descended from Martha’s father, John Wayles, and Betty Hemings, his slave. In the same manner, Jefferson began a relationship with Sally Hemings when she was a teenager and Jefferson was in his 40s. Hemings bore him at least 6 children, one of whom was named for his friend James Madison.

While we cannot know Hemings' own views on her consent, there are some circumstances that should be taken into account. On the one hand, there is the coercive nature of Jefferson’s much greater age and power over Hemings. On the other, there is the fact that the relationship began while Jefferson was living in France, where Hemings was technically a free woman. She had every legal right to refuse to return to America, or even sue for freedom once she had returned, and she did not.

Her son Madison’s memoir recounts the situation in these ambivalent terms:

[My mother’s stay in France] was about eighteen months. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson’s concubine, and when he was called back home she was enciente [meaning, with child] by him. He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promise, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia. Soon after their arrival, she gave birth to a child, of whom Thomas Jefferson was the father. It lived but a short time.

If the historiography of his account is correct, in the timing of this song, Sally was either pregnant, or had just had the child, and was expecting to be granted those promised extraordinary privileges. And hey! Jefferson is asking her nicely to open that letter for him. That totally counts, right?

Not so much. The phrase “be a lamb” usually means “Please do as I say.” In this context, however, it’s used to criticize Jefferson’s hypocrisy. Sally was property owned by Jefferson. She had no more status than a lamb on his estate.

In reality, Jefferson and Hemings' children were raised as slaves and weren’t freed until Jefferson’s death. Hemings herself was never freed. It’s generally believed that Jefferson’s daughter gave Hemings “her time” after Jefferson’s death, which was some sort of unofficial simulacrum of freedom, and her son Madison wrote that she lived with him for the remainder of her life.

Didn’t quite happen this way. It took a few letters and some persuasion on the part of the president.

In October 1789, Washington wrote Jefferson in part:

In the selection of Characters to fill the important offices of Government in the United States I was naturally led to contemplate the talents and disposition which I knew you to possess and entertain for the Service of your Country.[…] I was determined, as well by motives of private regard as a conviction of public propriety, to nominate you for the Department of State, which, under its present organization, involves many of the most interesting objects of the Executive Authority.—But grateful as your acceptance of this Commission would be to me, I am at the same time desirous to accomodate to your wishes, and I have therefore forborne to nominate your Successor at the Court of Versailles until I should be informed of your determination.

Washington sent another letter in November to ask for his permission yet again. This was around the time that Jefferson arrived in America.

Jefferson responded in December, saying he would prefer to remain ambassador to France, but he’d do whatever Washington asked.

Washington wrote a long response in January of 1790, telling him to make his own mind up, and explaining what duties would be entailed, and saying let him know ASAP. In February, Jefferson decided to accept the position.

At the time the federal government was headquartered in New York City, Hamilton’s home.

We see here that Jefferson is a bit of a homebody and not too fond of the commute time from Monticello to NYC. Hamilton would later make a trade with Jefferson—the federal government would assume the states’s debts and consolidate financial power, but its capital would move to Jefferson’s home state of Virginia.

There’s a dichotomy established here between “home” and “New York.” Jefferson doesn’t see New York as his home, it’s just another place he has to travel to. He’s betraying his colonial loyalty to his state in opposition to the nation as a whole. This will have greater political ramifications in the next song, “Cabinet Battle #1,” where he’ll have some choice words for Hamilton’s federal debt assumption plan.

Jefferson is referring to Monticello’s attractive landscape and plantation fields, but as an interesting side-note, Rolling Fields is also a city in the metropolitan area of Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Kentucky was originally part of the colony of Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson himself signed the town charter of Louisville in 1780.

Jefferson County, named after Thomas Jefferson, was formed at this time as one of three original Kentucky counties from the old Kentucky County, Virginia. Louisville was the county seat.

Louisville has a dark history of being the location of a major hub of the slave trade. The phrase “get sold down the river” (used later in “The Room Where It Happens”) originates from the way that people sold there would be sent down the Ohio to the Mississippi and on to various Southern plantations and slave markets.

However, it was also a major crossroads in the slave trade’s underground resistance movement, as Indiana, just across the Ohio River, was a free state. As such, getting across was often referred to with biblical allusions such as “crossing the River Jordan.”

As with most areas of America scarred by slavery, the region also has a rich jazz history.

A moment of phenomenal hypocrisy considering Jefferson’s status as a slave-owner, especially after the mention of Sally Hemings several lines earlier. Throughout this scene, the ensemble members on stage are contextualized as Monticello slaves, doing housework and the like as Jefferson surveys his long-missed home. During this line in particular, the male cast is literally carting him across the stage on a rolling staircase (symbolizing his travel to New York). Jefferson looks around at his magnificent estate and “rolling fields,” all made possible by the labor of slaves, and sees no irony in celebrating their freedom. Clearly “all men are created equal” only meant the white men…

Meanwhile, on a more meta note, the character of Jefferson is intentionally cast to be played by a person of color (Daveed Diggs in the original Broadway production). This casting complicates the resonance of the staging and material, as a black Jefferson, alive today, would be able to celebrate this universal human freedom with rather more sincerity than the real Jefferson of 1789.

On one hand, this line is an apt description of Madison’s physical state as he enters from stage right, coughing heavily. Madison suffered from an unknown condition that may have been epilepsy or panic attacks, and he was a hypochondriac.

Meanwhile, “red in the face” likely also refers to Madison’s anger at Hamilton.

Hamilton makes a similar double entendre about Madison later in the show, during “Cabinet Battle #1.”

In keeping with Jefferson’s 70s influences, here he invokes one of the greatest Motown jams of that decade, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”:

Original Madison and Onaodowan as Madison

The original casting call for Madison:

HERCULES MULLIGAN/JAMES MADISON (dual role): Tenor/baritone, MUST be able to sing and rap well. […] MADISON is incisively intelligent, quiet, professorial. A former Hamilton ally, he becomes Jefferson’s detail man concerning all matters—he gets things done. RZA meets Zach from Chorus Line.

In the original Broadway cast, Madison was played by Okierete Onaodowan.

Madison biographer Irving Brant described the fifty-year relationship between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as a “perfectly balanced friendship,” and certainly there are many parallels in the lives of these two men – not only in their political careers, but in their private interests as well.

In addition to repeating the melody of Jefferson’s first lines, Madison’s verse basically repeats the rhyme scheme (status quo/spins/Monticello/begins; soul/in/control/been), for a little bit of extra awesomeness.

This indicates Madison’s role as Jefferson’s “hype man” (as seen in future songs).

Hamilton’s big idea as Treasury Secretary was to establish a central bank for the U.S. and have the Federal government take over state debt from the war.

This plan would make the Federal government a financial power in its own right, and was seen as a big giveaway to financial interests, which were primarily based in New York.

A one-word answer that Madison will repeat back to him later on.

Not to mention that with the show’s double-casting, our Jefferson (returning from France) is played by our former Lafayette (a Frenchman who just went back to France).

Bonus fact from Lin: “This was a Daveed [Diggs] improv that made it into the song.” (Hamilton: The Revolution, p. 153)

A bit of word painting here, as the melody descends notably on the phrase “into the abyss.”

Reminiscent of “chick-a-pop” and “chick-a-plao” from Act I, which referred to gunshot in the midst of battle. Here, the line suggests that Jefferson’s first cabinet meeting will prove more battle than meeting… or perhaps rap battle.

The tempo and syncopated rhythm here mirror the same phrase in the theme song to Sesame Street… An unlikely coincidence, given that Miranda has been a guest and written several songs for the television program.

Rather than interrupting Jefferson’s flow (like a certain someone else), Washington is happy to go along; he would rather unify than divide.

Historically, Jefferson and Washington had a complex relationship, which devolved during the 1790s. In the famous Mazzei letter, Jefferson suggests that Washington has become a weakling serving England’s interests. At one point in the letter, Jefferson states, “It would give you a fever, if I should name the apostates who have embraced these heresies; men who were Solomons in council, and Sampsons in combat, but whose hair has been cut off by the whore England."

Instead of singing along with the melody of “What’d I Miss,” Hamilton sings to the tune of his own song, the musical motif he always uses for introductions. This is both a musical callback to the song that introduced our protagonist and a way of saying that Hamilton wears his history—his whole self—on his sleeve. Even within other people’s songs, Hamilton is always unapologetically himself.

Here, this creates a bit of dissonance with Jefferson’s own melody, signaling the clash between their personalities and policies.

On stage, Jefferson is reaching out to shake Washington’s hand. However, Alexander Hamilton cuts Jefferson off to introduce himself. Already starting off on the wrong foot, but at least he’s trying! Minutes later, he’s decidedly less polite.

Chris Jackson, who plays Washington in the original Broadway cast, was also in Miranda’s first Broadway hit, In the Heights, in which his character also sings “welcome home”: