Guys I posted something about this on my message board already but I want to go more in depth here.

Basically one year ago today my church youth group went on a retreat to a place a couple hours away. Our youth director was wearing a Hamilton shirt:

And me, being young and naive, had no idea what it meant, so I asked him and he told me it was characters from a musical called Hamilton. My cousin had listened to a few songs from it and told me it was good, so I thought "What the heck, why not?"

So the ride there and the ride back I listen to Hamilton, not knowing what was happening most of the time but still enjoying it. I started my 1 week free trial of Premium on Spotify so I could listen to the songs in order.

That didn't keep me from getting confused occasionally, though. Example: Stay Alive (Reprise).

Spoilers for Hamilton ahead (but it's history so idk if spoilers really apply but whatever)

In that song, Hamilton's son Phillip dies. Now, whenever I first listened I couldn't tell one voice from another (look at me now ahahahahaha), and at this point in time all I knew about Hamilton was that Hamilton himself died in the end.

So naturally I assumed that Hamilton was dying in this song. This confused me for two reasons:
1.) There were a bunch of songs after it. How would that work if the main character had died?
2.) It was talking about a dad. I may not have been too familiar with the Hamilton soundtrack at that point in time, but hadn't it mentioned in the first song that Hamilton's dad was gone or something? How was he back in this song? And his mom died, why is she here?

Such a confused child I was.

Another funny story happened when listening to You'll Be Back, sung by everyone's favorite villian, King George.

I was just sorta zoned out listening to it. As I mentioned above, basically the only thing I knew about Hamilton was that he was killed in a duel by some bad guy named Aaron Burr (sir).

So, I assumed that this song (You'll Be Back) was being sung by Burr, to some girl. I assumed that Burr and Hamilton were fighting over said girl. (Sorry I knew nothing about history. Still don't, actually)

Then came the line,

"I will kill your friends and family
To remind you of my love."

I stopped zoning out. What? He's going to kill this random girl's family? What the heck?

I was very confuzzled. So, being a stereotypical American teen, I googled the song.

I was received to see it was King George singing to the colonies, and the line made sense at last.

Time passed. I listened to the soundtrack straight through. (Something I hope to do today as celebration). I deciphered each character's voice from the next.

I memorized the whole soundtrack in a couple months. It was the only think I listened to for a while. I also made various realizations in the music (in my Hamilton Realizations chapter of this book)

Now I listen to other musicals, Wicked and Newsies and In The Heights and Aladdin, and others. I have yet to see any musicals...

But that'll be for another day. And while I love these other musicals, Hamilton will always hold a special place for me as my introduction to musical theater.