The World Was Wide Enough

In the background, we can hear what sounds very much like a clock ticking. Sounds like Hamilton is running out of time.

Echoes “The Ten Duel Commandments” as another duelling reprise, but also twists the line a little to make it more of an internal narrative from Burr, like Angelica’s ‘fundamental truths’ in “Satisfied.” Makes sense, considering this song encompasses much more than just the duel itself.

Lurking in the background of the music, beginning with this line, is the melody that underlies most of Burr’s narration. It started out as the simple piano line in “Alexander Hamilton” (which later became the “Whoa-oh-ohs” of “My Shot”), sounded a bit more casual and syncopated by the beginning of “What’d I Miss,” and now has a distinctly eerie tone, played on a synthesizer rather than a piano. This echoes Burr’s descent from a reasonably dispassionate narrator into someone with a very personal stake both in how things play out and how events are perceived after the fact. The audience can no longer trust him.

Speaking of rowing, Alexandra Hamilton Woods (a descendent of Hamilton’s) and Antonio Burr (a descendent of one of Burr’s cousins) now go kayaking together.

Another absurd but true fact: Lin-Manuel Miranda and Antonio Burr were actually neighbors. Miranda credits Antonio for changing his perspective on Burr:

William P. Van Ness, a lawyer based in New York, was a friend of Burr’s who had stumped hard for him during the Election of 1800.

He went on to become a federal judge during James Madison’s presidency.

This line flows into the next, by saying that William Peter Van Ness was his “Number Two”, AKA second.

Hamilton arrives with his “crew” in the classic sense of the word (the people manning the boat) but also with his “crew” in several modern slang senses (group of friends, group of rappers).

Similarly, a few lines earlier, Burr’s crew “rowed across the Hudson at dawn.” But because “rowed” and “rode” are homophones, this line can also be read as “We rode across the Hudson at dawn,” a line that wouldn’t be out of place in a rap about modern-day gangsters driving to a confrontation.

One of Miranda’s stated goals in Hamilton was to “eliminate any distance between a contemporary audience and this story.” Lines like these with dual historical and anachronistic meanings are part of how he does that.

Judge Nathaniel Pendleton signed on as Hamilton’s second. He served the Georgia district court for most of the 1790s, but resigned his position to go into private practice in New York. He eventually served as the judge for New York’s Dutchess County.

Dr. David Hosack, a family friend, served as physician. At the time he was a noted doctor, botanist, and educator, but he’s remembered by history for his detailed account of Hamilton’s condition and fate after this duel. An excerpt:

When called to him upon his receiving the fatal wound, I found him half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of Mr. Pendleton. His countenance of death I shall never forget. He had at that instant just strength to say, ‘This is a mortal wound, doctor;’ when he sunk away, and became to all appearance lifeless….

Dr. Hosack also treated Philip, in vain, after Philip’s duel. He went on to have several children, including sons named Nathanael Pendleton and Alexander. Alexander Hosack followed in his father’s footsteps and became a prominent physician—and was Aaron Burr’s doctor in his final years.

The company continues to count through the “ten things you need to know” to ten. This is a reference to the song during the first duel in the show: “Ten Duel Commandments”. The lyrics from this part of the song are entirely different from “Ten Duel Commandments”, other than the counting.

Hamilton has always been mentally ahead of Burr, but Burr never truly admitted it. Here, in Hamilton’s final minutes, he finally recognizes it.

‘Pursuits’ rhymes with ‘recruits’ the last word of the line occurring at the same time sung by Burr in “Ten Duel Commandments”; “This is commonplace, ‘specially ‘tween recruits”

In addition to opposing Burr in the presidential election of 1800, Hamilton also opposed him in the 1804 New York election for governor.

This is the first maxim from “Ten Duel Commandments” that is exactly repeated in the Burr-Hamilton duel.

Interesting to note that, in both instances, the full Company sings the line. Almost as if a Greek chorus keeps trying to remind them of this…

Coming after Burr’s rage in the last line, however, the audience knows someone is going to shoot. In all three duels of the play, none of the disputes die and someone shoots. Guess who shoots here.

Per Chernow (p. 702):

Pendleton and Van Ness marked out ten paces for the duel and drew lots to choose positions for their principals. When Pendleton won, he and Hamilton oddly decided that Hamilton would take the northern side. Because of the way the ledge was angled, this meant that Hamilton would face not just the river and the distant city but the morning sunlight. As Burr faced Hamilton, he would have the advantage of peering deep into a shaded area, with his opponent clearly visible under overhanging heights.

There are two commas in the middle of this phrase which are hard to ignore.

Currently, this line depicts the rest of the world seeing Hamilton as a man steadfastly pursuing his goals. The “world” that’s watching Hamilton during the duel seems to consist only of Burr, Van Ness, and Pendleton; that world eventually expands to include history itself and all those who hear of how history unfolded in that moment—including us as viewers of Hamilton. However, if read without the commas (which is how it sounds when rapped by Burr in the cast album), the line depicts Hamilton himself as the one looking at the world as someone on a mission—a mission to secure his legacy and, in the moment, to throw away his shot in the duel against Burr.

It’s very interesting to see how Miranda took care of every little detail in writing the lyrics of the show.

Hamilton’s early military career was launched when he was noticed as being remarkably accurate with artillery. He was given his own battery and through the rest of his life carried the reputation of being one of the most accurate shooters of his time.

It was common practice that the doctor would not look at the duelers during both the boat ride over to the dueling grounds and through the duel as to have legal deniability.

In fact, Dr. David Hosack was not on the dueling grounds, but down a steep path near the boat that rowed them over. Chernow notes:

The surgeon was expected to be close enough to the duel to heed cries for help but far enough away to profess ignorance, if necessary, of the whole transaction.

This line in the song is almost exactly the same as the one from “Ten Duel Commandments,” but the context makes the meaning more sinister here. The earlier lines about how Hamilton is a good shot, and looks like he’s on a mission, make this more about deadliness than about deniability. And Aaron Burr’s fearful voice implies that he thinks this time the doctor is turning around because Burr is about to get killed.

It’s hard to hear on the cast album, but Philip says this along with Burr.

Philip’s duel took place in Paulus Hook, New Jersey (today Jersey City), which is about 4 miles from the dueling grounds in Weehawken, New Jersey, where Alexander meets Burr.

Hamilton joins Burr in singing this line. Since they both wonder “why” Hamilton is examining his gun, it emphasizes the idea that Alexander may still be making a final decision on what to do, and why, until the moment of the shot.

The dissonant intervals here recall Philip “changing the line” in “Take A Break”.

The mutual wondering of “Is that why?” may also be both men asking about the reason for the duel itself. Given that Burr has already expressed incredulity that Hamilton would really go through with a duel when they were both serving as seconds (“Ten Duel Commandments”), and given also that the Hamiltons were taken over by grief after Philip’s death, both men would be wondering why in the world they are going through with this. Hamilton’s son’s death serves as the reason why Hamilton—who has imagined death so much it feels to him like a memory—might be hastening his own death on purpose here.

These are just a few interpretations of this line. There are too many to integrate into a single annotation, so make sure you look at the Suggestions below.

Alexander used the same set of pistols as Philip, a pair owned owned by John Barker Church.

Chernow adds:

During an examination of the pistols for the 1976 bicentennial celebration, experts discovered an optional hair-trigger mechanism, which, when set, allowed a much lighter squeeze than if the regular trigger was used. Some commentators have found something suspect about Hamilton’s choice of these pistols, as if this hidden feature unmasked his true intention to fire at Burr. Yet historians have always known about the hair trigger. When Pendleton handed Hamilton his weapon on the dueling ground, he asked “if he would have the hair spring set” and Hamilton replied, “Not this time.” Thus, even if Hamilton had intended to conceal the hair trigger from Burr, he decided not to exploit it. Hamilton’s reply shows that he was still vacillating over whether to throw away his fire on the second shot as well.

Seven was the number Philip was killed on by Eacker in “Blow Us All Away.” During live performances, the stage lights up to form a target in the middle of the two duelers on each number as the company counts up. On this number during the Disney+ recording, a cut is made to a wide shot of the stage, potentially to remind the audience of this particular fateful number for the Hamilton family, which Philip did on his deathbed in “Stay Alive.”

Not only was the Declaration of Independence signed on July 7th, 1776, which is the seventh month of the year, but Hamilton and Burr’s duel also took place in July of 1804 on the 11th.

Wordplay between “confession,” the religious sacrament of confessing your sins and being forgiven for them, and “confession time,” a conversational way to warn someone you’re about to say something embarrassing or controversial (Burr’s admission is both).

As stated in “Ten Duel Commandments,” before a duel you’re supposed to “confess your sins,” the implication being you seek the sacrament of confession with a priest to get right with God. Burr, however, confesses to the audience, who are in many ways a proxy for the eyes of history.

This is one of the clearest instances in the show of Burr showing himself to be an unreliable narrator. Chernow, characterized Burr, a war veteran, as “a superb marksman,” and the subject of persistent rumors that he had been practicing with his pistols prior to the duel. One of Burr’s actual fellow soldiers and friend, Charles Biddle, actually said Burr “had no occasion to practice, for perhaps there was hardly ever a man could fire so true and no man possessed more coolness or courage.”

(However, Burr himself told the New York Spectator in 1824 that he had been aiming for Hamilton’s heart, when he actually struck Hamilton in the abdomen, just above his hip. He blamed this on poor visibility due to morning mist. Sure, Burr…)

While it may be historically inaccurate, the line helps to establish Burr’s paranoid state of mind here. He’s convinced Hamilton is going to kill him, and “He’s an awesome shot and I’m not” is just one more thing that’s making him feel helpless. In Burr’s mind, he’s the victim who is going to die unless he can shoot Hamilton first, something he does not believe he will be able to do.

While the “commandment” part of number eight is recited (or sung) identically as before, it is carried out very differently. When Laurens and Lee dueled, their seconds attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the dispute, and set the record straight between the men. Here, Burr is only interested in setting straight the historical record.

Another callback to “The Ten Duel Commandments,”, though here the company seems to be urging the two men to rethink this, to call this whole thing off. As usual, our Greek Ensemble seems to have some tragic foreknowledge that if events go forward as planned, terrible things will happen.

But instead of sending in his second to try to avert the duel, Burr breaks the fourth wall to give us another justification for taking his shot: Hamilton wearing his glasses. In this way, he is literally trying to “negotiate” with history and “set the record straight”.

Duelling: still woefully underrepresented in American boarding school curriculums…

This reemphasizes the idea that we have no control who tells our story. Some textbooks omit the fact that Hamilton may have had intent to kill, either because it is not pertinent to the course or because the portrayal of Hamilton as a martyr is more appealing than merely saying this was the unfortunate outcome of a mess he got himself into.

Burr is breaking the fourth wall here (as he does often). He knows that in the future Hamilton will be portrayed as the innocent victim and he the villain, and is speaking to this. It is directed to a modern audience, one to which this story is merely history and one that is able to fact check easily—to look it up.

He was indeed wearing his glasses.

Historian Roger Kennedy feels that Hamilton was deliberately provoking Burr:

As they were taking their places, he asked that the proceedings stop, adjusted his spectacles, and slowly, repeatedly sighted along his pistol to test his aim.

So why indeed?

Kennedy believes “Hamilton performed a series of deliberately provacative actions to ensure a lethal outcome” due to an “unconscious imperative… toward assisted suicide.”

Chernow doesn’t believe Hamilton was suicidal, and instead contends that Hamilton stopped the duel and put the glasses on to help with the glare from the river and sunrise. If Hamilton did intend to delope (as he indicated in his pre-duel letters), he would need to see clearly to avoid hitting Burr.

In the off-Broadway run, Hamilton said he wore his glasses to try to see if Burr’s face showed any sign of softening. A few years earlier Burr had dueled with Angelica’s husband, John Barker Church, and Burr had then seemed “eager to terminate the duel” and “a reasonable man”. Hamilton would have been justified in hoping Burr would take actions to avoid or bloodlessly end a duel that was clearly politically suicidal.

In the Broadway production, Hamilton’s intentions are left murkier. This adds dramatic tension – will Hamilton throw away his shot or not? – and also leaves the audience with some ambiguity as to his intentions going into the duel. This reinforces the theme that much of history is unknowable, and our interpretation of it is heavily dependent on the choices made by storytellers and historians.

This line also calls back to a theme from “Alexander Hamilton” which was also reprised in “Guns and Ships” when Washington began his appeal to his right hand man. Once again, Burr has learned from Hamilton—something that ultimately plays a part in both men’s downfalls.

You can see in history, that the world wasn’t the same. The duel concluded with Hamilton dead and Burr’s political career ruined. The world would have been quite different if this hadn’t been the outcome.

One can’t help but infer a parallel here to “Javert’s Suicide” in Les Miserables:

There is nothing on earth that we share
It is either Valjean or Javert

Not only is Lin a rabid Les Mis fan, explicitly citing it as an influence for Hamilton, but there are themes throughout Hamilton that position Burr as akin to Javert: both are vengeful, remorseful, complex, and ultimately sympathetic villains. “Wait For It” and “Stars” in particular demonstrate similarities with respect to lyrics, subject matter, emphasis, and placement, something that Miranda and Odom Jr. playfully called out in a Ham4Ham performance of “Ja-Burr! Perhaps most key, both musicals' plots wind up and down around serial foundational “confrontations” between the rivals.

In both, the world is distilled to a binary choice. It is he or I. Or, extended a bit, it is his world view or mine. Javert resolves this choice by killing himself. Burr takes aim.

Burr’s use of this word is interesting, as Merriam-Webster defines slaughter as:

1 : the act of killing; specifically : the butchering of livestock for market
2 : killing of great numbers of human beings (as in battle or a massacre) : carnage"

This might imply that Hamilton’s death was, in Burr’s opinion, wrong, and a crime (despite how he was portrayed in court after the duel).

Based on his statement that Hamilton would take “deadly aim,” Burr likely expects that the duel will end in his own death.

Burr’s wife Theodosia died in 1794, of what was probably cancer. They were only married 12 years. As orphans themselves, both Burr and Hamilton know firsthand the pain of losing their parents. Burr’s voice breaks here to show his emotion at the prospect of leaving his daughter in the same situation.

In an earlier version of the musical, there was a reprise of “Dear Theodosia” in which Burr wrote to the young Theodosia to tell her that her mother was dead. Lin-Manuel Miranda said it was cut for several reasons: some audiences were confused about which Theodosia he was speaking to, neither Theodosia is an on-stage character, and it didn’t build momentum toward this moment. This single line now sums up Burr’s emotional journey with both Theodosias.

But his desperation here might be explained by a promise he made in that reprise:

And I’ll be here for you
The way is clear for you to blow us all away

Ironic on Hamilton’s end given the estimation that he hit the tree branch directly above Burr’s head, skimming his ear.

Dueling is a very dangerous activity – many many people died as a result of duels. It takes a lot of courage to go forward with such a practice, rather than compromise your ideals. Burr needed to weigh these options carefully, then adopt a “power pose” before the duel began.

In addition to summoning courage in the face of impending (potential) death, Aaron Burr needed to summon the courage to face the consequences of the duel in the event he was victorious. Burr considered himself and Hamilton good friends (albeit also rivals). Taking his life and dealing with society after the fact would have taken a great deal of courage.

Like Lafayette said – You are the worst, Burr!

This line is also a direct reprise of Ten Duel Commandments

This is the final count in the entire show and the last moments that Hamilton is standing in front of Burr before he shoots him and finishes him off for good.

Lin Manuel Miranda has spoken in interviews and podcasts about the ‘ticking clock’ that is your life passing you by. Hamilton writes like he’s running out of time because he imagines death so much it feels like a memory(As does Lin Manuel Miranda) and a major representation of this ticking clock is this counting.
The duel is always preceded by a count, Burr lists off ten things we need to know, Philip counts to nine in French in Blow Us All Away and Take a Break.
Several others have pointed out it’s the motif for the duel itself and the count is a foreshadowing of the duel but in a larger sense this endless counting could be representative of that ticking clock as Hamilton is running out of time

The gunshot is fired, but then we hear the sound effect reverse… The flow of time warps for a moment as Hamilton ponders…

In the production, an actor from the ensemble holds her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart and travels from Burr’s gun to Hamilton throughout this soliloquy. She is playing a bullet. She continues to very slowly move towards Hamilton, even as the various characters he names and events he discusses are seen next to him, all silent. These are Hamilton’s last moments and last visions of his life in the fraction of a second before he is shot.

While the actor is moving towards Hamilton, the rest of the ensemble is trying to stop her, even going to the lengths of hoisting her into the air, all in an attempt to stop Alexander from dying.

This same actor also plays The Bullet during “Stay Alive,” when bullets miss Hamilton during the Revolutionary War.

Hamilton’s monologue changed between the Off-Broadway and Broadway stagings of the show. In the older version, Hamilton seems much more sure of himself (differences emphasized):

[HAMILTON]
I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory
This is where it gets me, on my feet, sev’ral feet ahead of me
When I see it coming, I don’t run or fire my gun, I let it be
There is no beat, no melody
Burr, my first friend, my enemy
The last face I will ever see
I’ve got to throw away my shot
I trust you’ll remember me
Sorry this bullet will be your legacy

Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me
You let me make a difference
A place where even orphan immigrants
Can leave their fingerprints and rise up
I’m running out of time. I’m using my goodbyes up
Wise up. Eyes up
I’m booking passage for the other side
Laurens leads a soldiers’ chorus on the other side
My son is on the other side
He’s with my mother on the other side
Washington is watching from the other side

One last ride

Rise up, rise up, rise up
Eliza

My love, take your time
I’ll see you on the other side
Raise a glass to freedom…

This use of Hamilton’s theme from “My Shot” fulfills the foreshadowing contained in this motif. It combines elements from the original “My Shot” line—“in my sleep, seven feet ahead of me”—and its reprise from “Yorktown”—“on my feet, the enemy ahead of me”—and draws meaning from both to create this critical moment when we finally see where death gets him. Here, in Hamilton’s last soliloquy, he literally discusses “my shot,” both his literal and figurative last shot, that he decides at the last moment to throw away.

Interestingly, the way the scene is laid out, this monologue actually does come before Hamilton is even wounded, making it seem like Hamilton is literally remembering his own death before the guns are even finished firing.

This could also be a nod to Hamilton’s intelligence, and the fact that the quick wit Jefferson mentioned in “Cabinet Battle #2” is continuing in his final moments. His mind literally works to contemplate life and death faster than a speeding bullet, which is represented on the stage as an actor playing “the bullet” moves towards him in achingly slow motion.

The evolution of the role of the Bullet in the choreography as a symbol of impending death and of Burr’s fatal shot makes it such that one reason Hamilton “imagine[s] death so it feels more like a memory” may be because he’s encountered death (as symbolized by that ensemble member) so many times before throughout the show. This would literally make “death… a memory” for him.

Lin-Manuel Miranda explained in the Hamiltome that this little interlude is intended to build audience suspense. He originally wrote it “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory / This is where it gets me…” etc., with all the questions reverted to absolutes. Oskar Eustis convinced him to change it, and the difference was immediately felt. The new lyrics invoke that feeling of history being fluid for a split second, as if the bullet could be stopped. In Lin’s own words:

That’s exactly what you want when you’re producing Romeo and Juliet. ‘Juliet, just wake up before he drinks the thing!’ And we know what’s gonna happen! We know they’re both gonna die! But if it’s a good production, you gasp anyway. And that’s what we’re after here. By Oskar pushing and pushing, he got us to a place where we get the audience gasping.

This line ties into these lines from “Wait For It,” where Burr observes:

Hamilton doesn’t hesitate
He exhibits no restraint

Here, we see a split-second of hesitation leading to a decision to practice restraint. In this decisive moment, Hamilton acts against his character, and it ends poorly for him. Very poorly.

Refers to Hamilton’s wondering back in “My Shot” “is [death] like a beat without a melody?” Now he’s found out.

This scene is also set without music, which, according to this New Yorker article, was one of the last things Miranda figured out in writing the show:

The solution came to Miranda at almost the last moment, early in the morning on New Year’s Day. He was lying in bed, with his infant son sleeping on his chest, and Nadal sleeping next to him. It was the quietest Miranda could remember his life being for a long time. Quiet, he thought. That was the one card he hadn’t yet played in “Hamilton.” What if he didn’t write any music at all? He took his dog out for a walk, leaving his headphones at home this time, occasionally stopping to scribble in a notebook. He stayed up working until five the next morning, hearing Hamilton’s final moments at last.

In “Aaron Burr, Sir,” Burr is one of the very first people Hamilton meets in America (in the show’s timeline, though not in real life), and they are, at the beginning, at least friendly if not truly friends. Their conversation in “The Story of Tonight (Reprise)” indicates that they were, for a time, on quite amicable terms.

Chernow writes that, after Hamilton’s death, Burr would facetiously refer to him as “my friend Hamilton — whom I shot.”

According to Chernow, Hamilton’s first friend was actually none other than Hercules Mulligan.

Burr was never really his enemy until after the Election of 1800. When Alexander started bad-mouthing him, Burr could NOT let it slide!

Though Hamilton is envisioning a more immediate death, it does not come to pass as such. As Burr later says, “Angelica and Eliza were both at [Hamilton’s] side when he died”, suggesting that theirs were the last faces he saw. Chernow agrees that the Schuyler sisters were present for Hamilton’s final hours, alongside other friends and family members.

Here, Hamilton is speaking to all of us when he speaks of “how you’ll remember me”—he’s also speaking directly to Burr, sympathizing with the fact that his first friend’s last memory of him will be the moment he kills him.

From Hamilton’s last letter to Eliza before he went to meet Burr:

The Scruples of a Christian have determined me to expose my own life to any extent rather than subject my self to the guilt of taking the life of another. This must increase my hazards & redoubles my pangs for you. But you had rather I should die innocent than live guilty.

So in the end he decided that the best legacy would in fact be to throw away his shot.

The delivery of the word “legacy” back to back against itself is perhaps a nod to “Legacy” by Eminem, which has a chorus that sounds very similar.

This line evokes Washington’s desire in “One Last Time” to ‘sit under his own vine and fig tree.“ Unlike Washington and the rest of his peers, Hamilton—who has always worked like he was running out of time—never expected to live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. He was always thinking much further ahead.

This echoes the sentiment of a Greek proverb:

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

In this verse, Hamilton delivers his final treatise about legacy as he finally reaches the last page in his story.

Hamilton’s role in his own legacy is similar to that of a songwriter—he creates the words, but how they’re interpreted, when they’re performed, and what impact they will have is beyond his control or even knowledge.

This also mirrors the structure of the play itself, breaking the fourth wall slightly. Hamilton doesn’t sing in the final song – Lin-Manuel Miranda, here acting as Hamilton, wrote notes that someone else will sing about him, as Hamilton, in order to finish the story on stage.

The powerful metaphor of America as a symphony isn’t original to Miranda. It reflects a belief that different cultures (especially those of immigrants) contributes to America through their own voice, rather than needing to “assimilate.” This metaphor was most famously expressed by Horace Kallen in “Democracy vs. The Melting Pot”

Thus “American civilization” may come to mean the perfection of the cooperative harmonies of “European civilization,” the waste, the squalor, and the distress of Europe being eliminated – a multiplicity in a unity, an orchestration of mankind. As in an orchestra, every type of instrument has its specific timbre and tonality, founded in its substance and form; as every type has its appropriate theme and melody in the whole symphony, so in society each ethnic group is the natural instrument, its spirit and culture are its theme and melody, and the harmony and dissonances and discords of them all make the symphony of civilization, with this difference: a musical symphony is written before it is played; in the symphony of civilization the playing is the writing, so that there is nothing so fixed and inevitable about its progressions as in music, so that within the limits set by nature they may vary at will, and the range and variety of the harmonies may become wider and richer and more beautiful.

Miranda catches the line of this thinking by explicitly calling America an unfinished symphony. The democratic system and society of America will never be “complete” due to the constant influx of new parts and themes that are constantly being inspired by ongoing immigration. As one of America’s first prominent immigrants, Hamilton helps begin the song, but he knows that he is only in the introduction of a vast and constantly unfurling score.

Hamilton is saying his last thank-yous to his biggest achievement, America.

This line uses the same melody that was first introduced in “My Shot”.

In referencing this song, Lin-Manuel Miranda might be trying to imply that Hamilton is thinking about “his shot” both literally and metaphorically. Yes, he took that shot—he achieved social mobility and made some fundamental stitches in the very fabric of America—but he’s also resolving himself to throw away this shot (i.e. aim at the sky).

This section reprises the “Non-Stop” motif, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” Here, we see the answer—it’s because he was. Hamilton has also asked, twice now, “If I see [death] coming, do I run?” Of course, running was never really an option. Death comes to everyone, if perhaps not this early. However, it’s not wholly unexpected here; indeed, several characters have foreshadowed that Hamilton will meet an early end at the hands of those he has pissed off, notably including Burr’s own early warning to Hamilton, “fools that run their mouths off wind up dead.”

Within this anxious flurry of callbacks, Hamilton has to remind himself to keep his “eyes up,” i.e. “look him in the eye.” His mind is running so fast he has to remind himself of the deadly import of the present.

Understanding Mr. Miranda’s reverence for the Broadway Songbook, it’s hard not to think of Ethel Merman/Mama Rose going to pieces in “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy when you hear this 11 o'clock breakdown.

At this point in the show, Mama Rose is “a character whose dreams were too strong and whose heart held her own feelings hostage to make those dreams come true.” She “finally drops her facade and admits her frustration and despair.” [T]he “unmasking of her psyche” takes place during the song.

---

This line’s delivery just seems to me that in his last moments, he’s scared. He’s not going to fight this outcome, but he’s not going in with steely confidence, which just makes the character much more human to me.

Hamilton, in his moment before death, sees the people most important to him in their life, on the “other side,” a common reference to the realm of death.

Laurens had died in battle in 1782 at the age of 27, and thus Hamilton sees him in a brief flash beyond death.

The only scene from the show left off of the cast recording depicts Eliza and Hamilton learning of his demise in “Tomorrow There’ll Be More Of Us.” This line calls back to that interlude, and Laurens' ghostly singing of one more mournful refrain of their soldier’s drinking anthem from beyond the veil. Here, Hamilton hears him at it.

However, there is another place some musical theater nerds' minds might feel compelled to go…

This phrasing also echoes “The Story of Tonight (Reprise)” from Act 1, in which we hear Hamilton and Burr tell each other, “I’ll see you on the other side of the war.”

Of course, the shades of Laurens and Philip Hamilton are played by the same actor (Anthony Ramos). At this line, Ramos, who is standing on the upper level, takes a step to the side and shifts his stance and mannerisms slightly, indicating the shift from Laurens to Philip.

Hamilton’s voice noticeably cracks here, inverting Burr’s concern that his death in the duel might leave Theodosia an orphan. Where Burr was determined to live to stay with his daughter, part of Hamilton wants to die so that he can see his deceased son again.

By mentioning his mother, Hamilton fulfills his promise from “Helpless” that he’ll “never forget my mother’s face” —worth noting, since he had tied that memory to a promise to Eliza that she would never feel helpless; i.e. that he wouldn’t let her or their family down. The fact that their son Philip is with her is a sad reminder that Hamilton broke that promise in letting Philip die. The mention of his mother here is one of the few places he talks about her, giving us a view that she is still a very important part of his life, since she is with his best friends and his son in heaven.

It is also appropriate that Hamilton’s mother and Washington are mentioned next to each other, in the roles of mother and father. Washington really was Hamilton’s surrogate father.

The other time Hamilton mentions his mother is in “Hurricane,” which is when he says “I couldn’t seem to die” and Burr responds with “Wait for it.” That foreshadowing has now been actualized.

Washington died on December 14, 1799. When he heard of his death, Hamilton wrote to a friend;

If virtue can secure happiness in another world he is happy. In this the Seal is now put upon his Glory. It is no longer in jeopardy from the fickleness of fortune.

Hamilton imagines the man in his moment before death, watching over him. But as Washington was both Hamilton’s mentor and an American legend, the line seems to call back to his earlier theme, “History Has Its Eyes On You.”

It may also reference “Washington on Your Side.” For the last 13 tracks, Washington has been out of the picture; in that time, Hamilton has lost his son, trashed his marriage, destroyed his political career, made an enemy of his former friend, and entered into the duel that will end his life. It truly will be nice for Hamilton to cross over and be on the same side as Washington again.

Refers to “One Last Time,” where Hamilton helps George Washington show the public how to say goodbye, setting a precedent for a maximum of two four-year terms for presidents. In this context, Hamilton wishes to learn how to say goodbye because he is going to die.

On stage, as Hamilton says “Eliza,” the stage turntables bring Eliza face to face with Hamilton. He recites the rest of the verse, and as he says “I’ll see you on the other side,” she walks upstage right, directly through the impending gunshot.

As Hamilton repeats the motif from “My Shot” that has followed him throughout his ambitious life, the notes repeat—as if Hamilton is a record skipping—in an increasing hysteria, until, at the top of his range, Hamilton suddenly switches gears. He sings Eliza’s name in her introductory motif from “The Schuyler Sisters”, his last reprisal of that theme. Her name dramatically cuts off the line, and the monologue. Hamilton thinks of her, and his brain, for once, quiets. He calms down and accepts his fate.

Additionally, this final thought may be a reference to Hamilton’s actual farewell letter that we saw him write to Eliza in “Best of Wives and Best of Women.” In it, he promised that “…With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world.”

Though he cannot “stay alive,” these lines do show that some of Eliza’s desires for their marriage from “That Would Be Enough”—“If I could grant you peace of mind / If you could let me inside your heart”—were fulfilled. She is the thought that helps him accept his death, and he trusts her to make the most of their time apart.

Thematically, this is the second time that “non-stop” Alexander Hamilton tells someone to slow down. The other is in “Blow Us All Away” as his son is preparing to duel, illustrating a contrast between his standards for himself and his wishes for his family. However, the ever-steady Eliza begins to take the reverse stance after Hamilton’s death, singing in the next song, “I can’t wait to see you again / it’s only a matter of time.”

Narratively, Hamilton has called for Eliza to “rise up” and she does, taking over for him in creating and telling their story. Hamilton has decided to patiently wait for Eliza “on the other side” while she “takes her time,” “Schmuel Song” style.

Take a breath
Take a step
Take a chance…
Take your time

This guidance is prescient, as Eliza goes on to live another fifty years after his death. He’s on his way to Heaven, where good souls are thought to ‘rise up’ to after they die, and he’s inviting her to join him after she’s taken full advantage of her time on Earth.

A line said by Hamilton’s revolutionary friends throughout the first act, in “The Story of Tonight” and its various reprises.

This is Hamilton’s final line in the play. While it bittersweetly recalls the glorious ambitions and friendships of his youth, it also relates to him raising his gun away from Burr in the next line. Hamilton exercises his freedom of choice in deciding to delope, while also literally raising his toasting hand.

One can easily imagine another history where this song ends with Hamilton’s more common refrain, “I am not throwing away my shot!” and he shoots. Instead, this Alexander chooses to move on, letting go his personal ambition and lingering instead on the beautiful image of an ideal worth striving for.

There’s also a sad parallel here: in Hamilton’s last words, he quotes Laurens' words from “The Story of Tonight.” In Laurens' last words, he quotes Hamilton’s lines from the same song. Laurens is the first person Hamilton references seeing on “the other side.” Quoting Laurens for his final words brings this full circle, a nod to the close relationship between these two men.

Hamilton throws away his shot.

The historical accuracy of this claim is debatable; since nobody watched duels (for deniability), we don’t know for sure if Hamilton aimed above Burr or not. We know for a fact that he claimed his intent was not to kill him, but also that he had acted suspiciously just prior to the duel, in ways that might indicate his actual goal was to shoot Burr. For example, as mentioned before, he was wearing glasses. Witnesses also mentioned how he had aimed down his sights repeatedly and was testing the wind.

As the shots sound, Burr shouts “Wait!”, as if to recall his bullet in an instant of regret. “Wait” is Burr’s watchword in the show, and this is the last time he says or sings it. Between this line and the next, the backing instrumentals of “Wait For It” return, too late for Burr to follow his own maxim. It’s heartbreaking—after a lifetime of patience, Burr acts rashly for once, and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

In Lin’s words:

“They’re so bound up in each other’s lives. Burr is someone, who all his life, hung back waiting for the right moment; and Hamilton is someone who always charged forward recklessly. And, in the moment that matters most, Burr charged forward, and Hamilton hung back, and it led to tragedy for the both of them. It’s really fun to explore that, but they’re like-minded. They’re twin souls at the top of the show.”

With these lines, the audience has been returned to the moment of truth and must endure a second take of the fatal shot. This time, Burr actually shouts “Wait!” before the guns fire, as if he knows what he’s about to do, but can’t stop it. Of course, Burr, as narrator, does already know what’s going to happen, and the fact that this line goes before the gun shot blurs the line between Burr “the narrator” and Burr “the character who we are watching act in his ‘present.’”

From the moment the bullet hits Hamilton until he dies, there is a soft pulsing bass line underscoring the music. While this bass line was used as Philip Hamilton died in “Stay Alive (Reprise)”, it also very closely follows the rhythm of the claps at the beginning of “Wait For It” and the pulse underneath “Aaron Burr, Sir”

It is interesting to note the correlation of this pulsing, yet steady rhythm, with the heart beat of a dying Hamilton, almost as if to say that if Burr had decided to “Wait For It” they would have been applauding him.

The shock of the moment continues into the lyrics and delivery. Not only does Burr sounds dazed and a little numb during this verse, he even forgets to rhyme. He is no longer “succinct'” and it takes him until he “hear[s] wailing” for it to sink in, whereupon he returns to a rhyming pattern.

From Chernow:

The bullet had fractured a rib on the right side, ripped through Hamilton’s liver and diaphragm, and splintered the second lumbar vertebra, coming to rest in his spine.

This is the second instance of LMM using a background beat to represent someone’s heartbeat. Much like in “Stay Alive (Reprise),” the beat stops once Alexander/Phillip dies. It stops in this song on the lyric “Were both at his side when he died.”

A statement published by witnesses to the duel mentions that Burr initially walked toward Hamilton with “a manner and gesture” that appeared “expressive of regret,” but he turned around when his friends urged him to flee from the scene.
This act represents the compassion, and even more so, the regret, Burr feels at what had just happened. In fact, later in life, Burr was known to refer to Alexander as “My friend Hamilton, whom I shot.”

Following the duel, Hamilton’s second, Nathaniel Pendleton and Dr. David Hosack, a physician, put Alexander on a barge heading back to New York. On the boat, even Hamilton was aware that he would not survive his wounds. Hosack wrote on the ride back to New York:

[Hamilton] happened to cast his eye upon the case of pistols, and observing the one that he had had in his hand lying on the outside, he said, “Take care of that pistol; it is undischarged, and still cocked; it may go off and do harm. Pendleton knows” (attempting to turn his head towards him) ‘that I did not intend to fire at him.’ … He then closed his eyes and remained calm, without any disposition to speak; nor did he say much afterward, except in reply to my questions. He asked me once or twice how I found his pulse; and he informed me that his lower extremities had lost all feeling, manifesting to me that he entertained no hopes that he should long survive.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Leslie Odom, Jr. talked about how his visit to the place where the duel took place gave greater resonance to this section:

The thing that I took back immediately into the show that night was seeing how far that row is. That’s a long row, dying the whole way. That resonated with me. There’s no ambulance. There are no paramedics. It’s just time. It took [Hamilton] a day to die.

Interesting LACK of interpretations here, as one can get a drink in either a celebratory or a solemn context. It’s entirely on Leslie Odom Jr’s delivery that we interpret the line entirely in the second way. It convinces you that Burr was as dead inside as Hamilton was… actually dead.

Of course, that’s just the interpretation on the cast album. In the Hamiltome, Miranda and Odom point out that the delivery changes from performance to performance. One night, Burr might be a stone-cold killer, another night Burr may be torn by grief.

It’s also a callback to one of the first things that Burr says to Hamilton in “Aaron Burr, Sir” : “Can I buy you a drink?” Obviously, he has to drink by himself now that he’s killed his drinking buddy.

In reality, Odom, and Miranda, give Burr more credit than perhaps they should. Chernow says:

After returning from Weehawken, Aaron Burr’s boat docked at the foot of Canal Street, and he had proceeded on horseback to Richmond Hill with the blithe insouciance of a man who had just taken the morning air… According to his early biographer James Parton, a young Connecticut relative dropped by Richmond Hill unannounced and found Burr in his library. Every inch the cordial host, Burr neglected to mention that he had shot Alexander Hamilton two hours earlier. While his antangonist was dying a half mile to the north, Burr breakfasted with his cousin and exchanged pleasantries about mutual friends.

Chernow goes on to say that Burr’s cousin was later told about the duel, and did not believe it at first. Chernow is of course a Hamilton biographer, and thus biased in favor of Hamilton, but he’s not the only person who recounts this story.

The music underlying this entire section echoes the beginning of “Aaron Burr, Sir.”

Aside from providing Burr with some thematic backing as he reckons with the gravity of what’s just happened, this also creates a nice bit of symmetry. “Aaron Burr, Sir” is the second song in the musical. It introduces Hamilton and Burr’s relationship, and comes after the first song, which is all about introducing Hamilton and the beginning of his story. “The World Was Wide Enough” is the second to last song in the musical. It concludes Hamilton and Burr’s relationship, and is followed by “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” which talks about Hamilton’s legacy.

Chernow says:

“The feelings of the whole community are agonized beyond description,” Oliver Wolcott, Jr., told his wife. New Yorkers of the era never forgot the extravagant spectacle of sadness, the pervasive grief. Even Burr’s friend Charles Biddle conceded that “there was as much or more lamentation as when General Washington died.”

This echoes a song which Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote, but cut from the play, about Washington’s death. According to him, that song “began with Burr singing ‘I hear wailing in the streets…’ ”

The “Aaaah"s here are almost the same as in the background of Simon & Garfunkel’s "The Only Living Boy in New York.”

Burr sings earlier in Wait For It that everyone who loves him has died. Now, he’s just killed the other most influential person in his city.
Burr must feel like he’s the only living boy in New York.

At this point, dueling was illegal in both states, and since Hamilton died, Burr was also open to a murder charge. To avoid arrest, Burr had to hide. Burr was eventually indicted for murder in both states, though neither case ended up going to trial. He fled to Washington and made himself very busy with banal duties in the Senate that Vice Presidents usually delegate.

Anywhere else in the play, this line would end with a “Burr, sir” rhyme. Instead, there’s an unsettling gap—one caused by Hamilton’s absence from Burr’s life. It shows how important Alexander’s constant objection and indignation are to the rhythm and flow of Burr’s life.

This phrase is a very subdued callback to lines like King George’s “they say” and “Thomas claims,” which underscore the play’s thematic interest in how history tells its stories. Picture Ron Chernow and later Lin-Manuel trying to piece together the real person of Alexander Hamilton, based entirely on the letters and accounts of individuals long dead. In the end, all we can come up with are the distorted images that history paints and repaints. Just like Burr, none of us were in the room where it happened.

This is sung in a mournful version of the “Schuyler Sisters” theme.

Note that Eliza’s not singing along. She hasn’t put herself back in the narrative yet. The fact that only Angelica sings recalls how she also narrated “It’s Quiet Uptown”. She speaks for Eliza when Eliza herself can’t.

This is the last time that we see Aaron Burr as a character. In “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, he appears to be just a narrator, introducing people as they tell about their regrets regarding Hamilton.

They were. Hamilton was brought to the house of William Bayard, a very rich merchant. Dozens of family and friends crowded the house. According to Chernow:

Eliza sat devotedly at her husband’s bedside, fanning his feverish face… Angelica Church hastened to succor the man who had been her obsession for so many years. Gouverneur Morris would remember an inconsolable Angelica “weeping her heart out.” She [Angelica] expressed her profound admiration for Eliza in the face of such intolerable adversity.

It’s also interesting to note that from the moment the gunshot actually strikes Hamilton, until this line, a low percussion similar to a heartbeat thumps through the background of the music, the same way a fading heartbeat simulates Phillip’s death in “Stay Alive (Reprise).” It stops with the clang of a bell at the word “both,” signaling to the audience exactly when Alexander passes away. The bell symbolizes the church bells tolling for Alexander’s death.

Burr stated this line earlier in the musical when he spoke of the death of his parents. But back then, he followed it with “and we keep living anyway”; now, he follows it with a lament about history. Alexander’s mortality is apparent in Burr’s choice of words here.

Burr embodies and addresses the profound uncertainty of historiography—we cannot see the past clearly, we cannot truly know what happened, nor why. As history paints successive iterations on the same frame, it creates a palimpsest—it obscures as it attempts to elucidate. This point is further emphasized in the next number, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.”

To be fair to historians, Burr made a couple of big mistakes after the duel. His political career basically ended a few months after the duel—but that was because Jefferson never trusted Burr, and not because of the duel.

Burr then allegedly tried to work with England to start a new British colony in the Louisiana Purchase. He also worked on a plot to free Mexico from Spanish rule. Burr was arrested for treason for trying to incite war against Spain, but was acquitted by Chief Justice John Marshall. However, Burr was hated in the U.S. after that—he was burned in effigy, and Burr feared for his life. He fled to Europe and remained there in exile for four years, often traveling under a pseudonym. He restarted his law practice when he returned in the early 1810s.

All his life, Alexander has aimed at nothing but the sky—his ambition matched only by his dedication in pursuing. In this way the story infuses his final moments with a potent symbolism: Hamilton’s last actions reflect his entire life.

(This symbolism, including the literal aiming of his gun, is all tied together in the show’s logo)

Burr lived another 32 years after the duel, dying in 1836. He even outlived his beloved daughter Theodosia by two decades.

These lines echo Burr’s song “Wait for It” in Act I. Not only are “paid for it” and “wait for it” sung to the same melody, but check out the parallels:

“And if there’s a reason/He seems to thrive when so few survive, then Goddamnit/I’m willing to wait for it” versus “He may have been the first one to die/But I’m the one who paid for it/I survived but I paid for it.”

The recurring theme “Dying is easy young man, living is harder.” is also reinforced in these lines, as Burr lives, but has to deal with the repercussions and consequences of his actions.

This song reverses the idea of who is the survivor, and what that means for Burr. Lin-Manuel is an avid fan of Les Miserables. The structure of this scene mirrors that of “Confrontation” and “Javert’s Suicide,” with the reprise of “Wait for It” kicking off Burr’s introspective regret. It inverts the duality in Javert’s lines:

“That granting me my life today
This man has killed me even so?”

Lin-Manuel is also an avid fan of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and, like Judas in that work, Burr is both a key narrator and responsible for the protagonist’s death. These lines of Burr seeing the inevitable consequences of his actions (his political career derailed and his legacy tainted) are similar to Judas' fear in “Judas' Death” that he’d be “dragged through the slime and the mud.” The theme of destroying oneself in the act of destroying another is common to both characters.

Hamilton and basically all the male characters in the show are obsessed to some degree with how history will view their actions. Although Burr is clearly seeking a purpose, unlike Hamilton and Washington, he never directly grapples with how history will see him—until this song. The overly cautious Burr didn’t think through the consequences of his challenge until it’s too late, and this adds to the pathos of the moment.

And Burr is right that he is painted as the villain; LMM calls him “the Richard III of American history.” This show is actually one of the few pieces of popular media that paints Burr in a somewhat sympathetic light.

You can’t blame the public too much though: a sitting vice president murdering a founding father overshadows almost everything else you could do. So much so, that only history overlooks all the other insane things Burr did, like plotting to take over the Western frontier and appoint himself emperor.

Here, the background chords are taken from “Wait for It”. As noted several times earlier, the one time where Burr and Hamilton switch their ideologies (Hamilton “waits for it” and Burr is “nonstop” in his pursuit of Hamilton), they find death. Hamilton, as we know, dies, and Burr’s political career is shattered.

Not that young—Burr was already 48 when the duel took place. Still, he lived another 32 years. Much of this song is sung from the perspective of an older and wiser Burr—the same who, in his final years, wrote the quote that gives us the title of this song. Indeed, over the course of these last few verses, Burr seems to be fading progressively further into the future. By the next song, he will resume his place as narrator, with his bird’s eye view of history.

This whole musical is him ruminating on his biggest regret, both as a person who killed a man who was once a friend, and as a historical figure whose greatest claim to fame was his fall to infamy.

The chords in “Wait for It” almost say “Yes Burr, you should have waited for your anger to pass. Wait for the wisdom of your later years to tell you not to shoot Hamilton.”

This is an actual quote attributed to Aaron Burr, who admitted later in life:

Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.

The Sterne that Burr is referring to is Laurence Sterne. In Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy, the kindly character Uncle Toby is described by Tristam as once telling a fly:

[G]o poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?—This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Miranda has commented on this quote:

Even though in Burr’s actual telling it’s kind of a joke, it’s still a heartbreaking sentiment.