Joan Marcus
Listened to the Hamilton soundtrack so many times you could sing every lyric and hum every harmony? Here’s a new Hamilton tune for your ears.
On Thursday, the musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, tweeted a Soundcloud link to the first draft of a song called I Have This Friend that never made it into the Tony Award-winning show.
“Wish I could send you peace of mind via this app,” Miranda wrote, seeming to allude to the widespread tumult caused by the coronavirus, which has shut down many cultural events, including all Broadway shows. “Alas. But I can send you music no one’s heard.”
Wish I could send you peace of mind via this app.
Alas.
But I can send you music no one’s heard. Here’s a cut Hamilton/Washington tune called I Have This Friend. No one’s heard it, not even Kail.
Funnier if you picture me and @ChrisisSingin singing it.https://t.co/lhkLP0jQeT— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) March 12, 2020
“I don’t think I even showed it to Tommy Kail,” Hamilton wrote of the director who helmed the Off-Broadway and Broadway versions of the hit musical show.
The cut song, Miranda said on Soundcloud, would have fit into the soundtrack where the tune Hurricane is now, and in fact has a piano intro that echoes Hurricane’s. In that powerful number, fittingly, American founding father Alexander Hamilton sings of surviving a disaster. “When I was 17, a hurricane destroyed my town I didn’t drown. I couldn’t seem to die.”
I Have This Friend appeared to lift the spirits of Miranda’s Twitter followers, some of whom are no doubt members of the New York theater community facing professional uncertainty at the moment.
“This brought me and my family such happiness in the midst of some angst and worry (and toilet paper shortages),” one Twitter user responded. Said another, “Thank you for saving this for a ‘rainy day’ as it were. The world needs a little joy right now.”