Music / The Hamildrops

One year after the release of The Hamilton Mixtape, Lin-Manuel Miranda announced the release of more Hamilton-related content he called "The Hamildrops." Instead of releasing all the songs together on one album, one new piece was released monthly from December 2017 through December 2018. The first such track, "Ben Franklin's Song," was released on December 15, 2017.

List of releases:

1. "Ben Franklin's Song" by The Decemberists (December 15, 2017)
2. "Wrote My Way Out" by Nas, Dave East, Aloe Blacc, and Lin-Manuel Miranda (January 19, 2017) — the music video to the song from The Hamilton Mixtape
3. "Wrote My Way Out" (remix), by Aloe Blacc, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Royce Da 5’9, Joyner Lucas, and Black Thought (January 26, 2017)
4. "The Hamilton Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic (March 1, 2018)
5. "Found/Tonight" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt (March 19, 2018)
6. "First Burn" by Arianna Afsar, Julia Harriman, Lexi Lawson, Rachelle Ann Go, and Shoba Narayan (April 30, 2018)
7. "Helpless" by The Regrettes (May 31, 2018)
8. "Boom Goes the Cannon..." by Mobb Deep (June 18, 2018)
9. "Boom Goes the Cannon..." by Mobb Deep (August 27, 2018) — the music video
10. "Rise Up Wise Up Eyes Up" by Ibeyi (August 31, 2018)
11. "A Forgotten Spot (Olvidado)" by Zion y Lennox, De La Ghetto, Ivy Queen, PJ Sin Suela and Lucecita Benitez (September 20, 2018)
12. "Theodosia Reprise" by Sara Bareilles (October 31, 2018)
13. "Cheering For Me Now" by John Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda (November 20, 2018)
14. "One Last Time (44 Remix)" by Christopher Jackson, Barack Obama, and Bebe Winans (December 21, 2018)

---

The Hamildrops contain examples of:

• Cover Version: "Helpless" is a straightforward rock cover of the original song.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The chorus of "Ben Franklin's Song" is laden with f-bombs as Franklin introduces himself.
• Cool Old Guy: Benjamin Franklin asserts this of himself in "Ben Franklin's Song." Truth in Television.
  "Do you know who the fuck I am?
  I am 76-and-I’ll-Still-Kick-Your-Ass Fuckin’ Franklin."
• Crossover: "Found/Tonight" combines "The Story of Tonight" with "Someday You Will Be Found" from Dear Evan Hansen.
• Dark Reprise: "Theodosia Reprise" was meant to be this to "Dear Theodosia". Where the original is partly Burr celebrating Theodosia's birth, here he is informing Theodosia that her mother has died.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The video for "Wrote My Way Out" is in black and white.
• Knew It All Along: In "First Burn," Eliza reveals she always knew that Alexander was attracted to Angelica, something that doesn't come up in the show. And she also knows that Angelica would never betray her.
• Men Act, Women Are: Miranda's reasoning for changing "First Burn" (and also "Congratulations" from the Mixtape) to "Burn" and "The Reynolds Pamphlet" in the show proper; while the original versions were angrier and more passionate, they made Eliza and Angelica too passive rather than reacting to Hamilton's faults.
• Motor Mouth: Weird Al demonstrates his by owning the rap segments included in the Polka. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Weird Al confirmed that he actually increased their tempo.
• Mythology Gag: "Ben Franklin's Song," being drafted from a cut song from the original musical, references other songs from Hamilton.
  • "They have guns, they have funds" echoes Lafayette's line about France from "Yorktown."
  • He refers to his imprisoned son as well as "our young nation," similar to how Burr and Hamilton sing about their ill-fated firstborn children ("you will come of age with our young nation") in "Dear Theodosia."
• Spiritual Successor: to The Hamilton Mixtape. Miranda stated that because he considered the mixtape such a perfect work as is, that Vol. 2 just wouldn't be as good, and decided to release them separately as Hamildrops instead.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Eliza's first version of Burn was much angrier and more scathing than the published version.
• You Are Not Alone: The message of "Found/Tonight", which is a mashup with "You Will Be Found" (a song already about this trope) and emphasizes this aspect of "The Story of Tonight".
  Raise a glass to freedom
  Something they can never take away
  Oh, no matter what they tell you
  Someone will come running
  To take you home