Here Are The Most Iconic Lines From Every Song In Hamilton | The Odyssey Online
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Here Are The Most Iconic Lines From Every Song In Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a 46 part masterpiece, and every single one has at least line that stands out.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton

For those of you that have been living under a rock for the last 5 years, Hamilton is a historical rap musical based on the life of one of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton. The musical first debuted on broadway in 2015, and a film version featuring the original broadway cast (!!!) is set to drop on Disney+ this Friday, July 3rd. I have no doubt in my mind that Hamilton will go down in history as one of the most iconic musicals of all time, which is fitting since it illustrates the life of one of the most iconic historical figures of all time. In honor of the film release this weekend, here is a list of the most iconic lines from every song to get you even more excited (if that is even possible) to watch Hamilton in your living room.

*The songs on this list are listed in the order they are performed in the musical.

1. Alexander Hamilton

Most Iconic Line: "My name is Alexander Hamilton." (We love a powerful introduction)

Honorable Mentions: "In New York you can be a new man."

"There's a million things I haven't done."

2. Aaron Burr, Sir

Most Iconic Line: "If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?" (This line comes back often)

Honorable Mentions: "Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for."

"Fools who run their mouths off wind up dead." (The future English teacher in me loves good foreshadowing)

3. My Shot

Most Iconic Line: "I'm not throwing away my shot." (duh)

Honorable Mentions: "I'm just like my country, I'm young scrappy and hungry."

"Keep out of trouble and you double your choices."

4. The Story of Tonight

Most Iconic Line: "I may not live to see our glory / But I will gladly join the fight." (Again, foreshadowing)

Honorable Mentions: "Raise a glass to freedom / Something they can never take away."

"Tomorrow they'll be more of us / They'll tell the story of tonight."

5. The Schuyler Sisters

Most Iconic Line: "When I meet Thomas Jefferson, I'ma compel him to include women in the sequel."

Honorable Mentions: "I'm a trust fund, baby, you can trust me." (This line just makes me laugh.)

"History is happening in Manhattan." (The idea of being aware that you're observing history is big in Hamilton.)

6. Farmer Refuted 

Most Iconic Line: "Burr, I'd rather be divisive than indecisive."

Honorable Mentions: "Is he in Jersey?" (I will always support a good roast of New Jersey.)

"This congress does not speak for me."

7. You'll Be Back 

Most Iconic Line: "I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love."

Honorable Mentions: "I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love." (King George, like many of our modern politicians, was a big fan of solving violence with even more brutal violence.)

8. Right Hand Man

Most Iconic Line: "Now I'm the model of a modern major general."

Honorable Mentions: "Hamilton, how come no one can get you on their staff?"

"Dying is easy young man, living is harder."

9. A Winter's Ball

Most Iconic Line: "Hamilton still wants to fight not write."

Honorable Mentions: "Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him." (Low-key foreshadowing, and also it's just hilarious.)

"Is it a question of if Burr, or which one?"

10. Helpless

Most Iconic Line: "Look into your eyes and the sky's the limit."

Honorable Mentions: "I'm just sayin', if you really loved me, you would share him." (Angelica must be protected at all costs.)

"No stress, my love for you is never in doubt." (Lin-Manuel Miranda may as well have just shouted "Pay attention! This issue will come back!" here.)

11. Satisfied 

Most Iconic Line: "At least I keep his eyes in my life." (I cry every. single. time.)

Honorable Mentions: "If I tell her that I love him, she'd be silently resigned."

"I will never be satisfied." (This line repeats throughout Hamilton as well.)

12. The Story of Tonight (Reprise) 

Most Iconic Line: "You are the worst, Burr."

Honorable Mentions: "I will never understand you." (aka the root of Burr and Hamilton's issues.)

"If you love this woman, go get her."

13. Wait For It

Most Iconic Line: "Hamilton doesn't hesitate."

Honorable Mentions: "Life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints." (Yet another line/idea that repeats.)

"I'm willing to wait for it."

14. Stay Alive

Most Iconic Line: "Don't do a thing, history will prove him wrong."

Honorable Mentions: "Laurens, do not throw away your shot."

"Alexander, you're the closest friend I've got." (Laurens and Hamilton's friendship is very underrated in my opinion.)

15. Ten Duel Commandments 

Most Iconic Line: "Can we agree that duels are dumb and immature?" (Spoiler alert: they later changed their minds on this front.)

Honorable Mentions: "Pray the hell or heaven lets you in."

"Summon all the courage you require, then count."

16. Meet Me Inside

Most Iconic Line: "Call me son one more time."

Honorable Mentions: "Your wife needs you alive son, I need you alive."

"That's an order from your commander."

17. That Would Be Enough

Most Iconic Line: "You deserve a chance to meet your son."

Honorable Mentions: "Oh, let me be a part of the narrative." (Eliza's presence in the "narrative" is also a repeated issue.)

"We could be enough."

18. Guns and Ships

Most Iconic Line: "An immigrant you know and love who's unafraid to step in."

Honorable Mentions: "I need my right hand man back."

"Alexander Hamilton, troops are waiting in the field for you."

19. History Has Its Eyes On You

Most Iconic Line: "You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story." (Spoiler alert: this exact line comes back at the end.)

Honorable Mention: "I know that greatness lies in you."

20. Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)

Most Iconic Line: "Immigrants, we get the job done."

Honorable Mentions: "Gotta start a new nation, gotta meet my son."

"Black and white soldiers wonder alike if this really means freedom."

"The world turned upside down."

21. What Comes Next?

Most Iconic Line: "When your people say they hate you, don't come crawling back to me."

Honorable Mentions: "Oceans rise, empires fall / It's much harder when it's all your call."

"I've got a small query for you."

22. Dear Theodosia

Most Iconic Line: "You will come of age with our young nation."

Honorable Mention: "We'll give the world to you, and you'll blow us all away."

23. Non-Stop

Most Iconic Line: "How do you write like you need it to survive?"

Honorable Mentions: "Hamilton wrote the other 51."

"I don't understand how you stand to the side."

24. What'd I Miss

Most Iconic Line: "Thomas Jefferson's coming home."

Honorable Mention: "But someone's gotta keep the American promise."

25. Cabinet Battle #1

Most Iconic Line: "Don't lecture me about the war, you didn't fight in it."

Honorable Mentions: "Winning was easy young man, governing's harder."

"Imagine what gon' happen when you try to tax our whiskey."

26. Take a Break

Most Iconic Line: "Take a break." (duh)

Honorable Mentions: "You're not joining us? Wait."

"John Adams doesn't have a real job anyway."

27. Say No To This

Most Iconic Line: "Someone under stress meets someone looking pretty."

Honorable Mentions: "Nobody needs to know."

"Longing for Angelica, missing my wife."

28. The Room Where It Happens

Most Iconic Line: "If you got skin in the game, you stay in the game."

Honorable Mentions: "I wanna be in the room where it happens." (Burr realizing he actually wants to be involved? Basically the beginning of the end for Hamilton.)

"Decisions are happening over dinner."

29. Schuyler Defeated

Most Iconic Line: "Beware, it goeth before the fall."

Honorable Mentions: "I changed parties to seize the opportunity I saw."

30. Cabinet Battle #2

Most Iconic Line: "You're nothing without Washington behind you."

Honorable Mentions: "I remind you that he is not Secretary of State."

"We've signed a treaty with a king whose head is now in a basket."

"Daddy's calling." (Jefferson was the original CEO of petty.)

31. Washington On Your Side

Most Iconic Line: "It must be nice to have Washington on your side."

Honorable Mentions: "Somebody has to stand up to his mouth."

"This immigrant isn't somebody we chose." (Yeah, people were rude to immigrants even way back when the country was new.)

32. One Last Time

Most Iconic Line: "I'm stepping down I'm not running for president."

Honorable Mentions: "I want to warn against partisan fighting." (Spoiler alert: we didn't listen.)

"I want to sit under my own vine and fig tree, a moment alone in the shade."

"I am unconscious of intentional error."

33. I Know Him 

Most Iconic Line: "'President John Adams' / Good luck!"

Honorable Mentions: "That's that little guy who spoke to me all those years ago."

"That poor man / they're going to eat him alive."

"They will tear each into pieces / Jesus Christ this will be fun."

34. The Adams Administration 

Most Iconic Line: "Hamilton's out of control."

Honorable Mentions: "As long as he can hold a pen he's a threat."

"No more Mr. Nice President."

35. We Know

Most Iconic Line: "I have not committed treason and sullied my good name." (Well, it sure wasn't treason that sullied it.)

Honorable Mentions: "No one else was in the room where it happened." (We love a good callback to an earlier song.)

"You don't even know what you're asking me to confess." (An iconic line, and the beginning of a great Tik Tok sound.)

"Alexander, rumors only grow."

36. Hurricane

Most Iconic Line: "I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance."

Honorable Mentions: "I was louder than the crack in the bell."

"I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell."

"This is the only way I can protect my legacy." (It probably wasn't, but go off I guess Alex.)

37. The Reynolds Pamphlet 

Most Iconic Line: "I'm not here for you." (Yet another iconic line/tik Tok sound duo.)

Honorable Mention: "You ever seen somebody ruin their own life?"

"God, I hope you're satisfied."

"He's never gon' be president now." (Spoiler alert: He wasn't. But neither was Burr.)

38. Burn

Most Iconic Line: "You forfeit all rights to my heart."

Honorable Mentions: "I'm erasing myself from the narrative."

"And you are paranoid in every paragraph / How the perceive you, you, you, you." (The anger in this line is palpable.)

"I'm burning the memories / Burning the letters that might have redeemed you."

39. Blow Us All Away

Most Iconic Line: "He disparaged my father's legacy in front of a crowd / I can't have that, I'm making my father proud." (Pride = the downfall of all of the Hamilton men, apparently.)

Honorable Mentions: "Your father's a scoundrel, and so, it seems, are you."

"Philip, your mother can't take another heartbreak." (And whose fault was that, Alex?)

40. Stay Alive (Reprise)

Most Iconic Line: "Mom, I'm so sorry for forgetting what you taught me."

Honorable Mentions: "Sept, huit." (Who knew French numbers could be so sad?)

"Who did this, Alexander, did you know?"

"I was aiming' for the sky." (F o r e s h a d o w i n g)

41. It's Quiet Uptown

Most Iconic Line: "You hold your child as tight as you can / And push away the unimaginable."

Honorable Mentions: "There is suffering too terrible to name."

"I know I don't deserve you Eliza."

"Forgiveness / Can you imagine?"

"They are going through the unimaginable."

42. The Election of 1800

Most Iconic Line: "Jefferson has beliefs, Burr has none."

Honorable Mentions: "Can we get back to politics? / Please?" (Leave it to Jefferson and Madison to make it all about them.)

"Talk less / Smile more." (aka Burr's literal life motto.)

"It might be nice, it might be nice / To get Hamilton on your side."

43. Your Obedient Servant

Most Iconic Line: "You've kept me from the room where it happens / For the last time."

Honorable Mentions: "Just to keep me from winning?"

"Here's itemized list of thirty years of disagreements." (It's honestly a miracle they were civil for this long.)

"I have the honor to be your obedient servant / A dot Ham / A dot Burr."

44. Best of Wives and Best of Women

Most Iconic Line: "Why do you write like you're running out of time?" (Yet another iconic repeated line.)

Honorable Mentions: "I'll be back before you know I'm gone." (Spoiler alert: He won't.)

"Hey, best of wives and best of women."

45. The World Was Wide Enough

Most Iconic Line: "What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see."

Honorable Mentions: "Eliza / My love, take your time / I'll see you on the other side."

"They say Angelica and Eliza were both at his side when he died."

"Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints."

"The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me."

46. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story 

Most Iconic Line: "I put myself back in the narrative." (Eliza was definitely too good for Hamilton.)

Honorable Mentions: "You could have done so much more if you only had time."

"In their eyes I see you Alexander, I see you every time."

"Oh, I can't wait to see you again / It's only a matter of time."

"Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?"

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