The Winter's Ball

In the song "The Winter's Ball," the first line in the song is sung by Burr and he says "How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore..." I found it interesting that Burr said this as his first line because Burr also said this exact same line in the first song, "Alexander Hamilton." A reason as to why I think that Burr said this same line both in the beginning song and the ninth song is because so much has happened to Hamilton within these songs. First, Hamilton's mother dies, he has to move in with his cousin but his cousin commits suicide, he moves to New York. In New York he meets a man named Aaron Burr and they become friends. Hamilton wants to fight in the revolution and ends up becoming George Washington's right hand man in the war and then he, Burr, and other men go to the Winter's Ball which is a ball where Hamilton meet's his future wife Eliza. However, in the song "Right Hand Man," the song before this song, Washington states that he is looking for a right hand man to help him win the war and Burr steps up and attempts to make a case as to why he should be Washington's right hand man but then Hamilton walks in and Washington completely ignores Burr and focuses solely on Hamilton and asks Burr to leave and blows him off. He wants Hamilton because Washington has heard good things about Hamilton and thinks that he can help him win the war. this makes Burr very mad so in the next song when they go to the ball, he says that Hamilton is obnoxious, arrogant, and a loudmouth bother plus the first line in the song. Burr says all of these negative things about Hamilton because he is Washington's right hand man and not him, so he is jealous of Hamilton. The first line in the song takes on two different meanings because in the first song, the line talks about how even despite all of these obstacles and hardships that Hamilton faced growing up, he still became a scholar, and a hero. however in the ninth song, this line is taken much more negatively in a sense that Hamilton is a bad person, and that despite all of these terrible things about him and his horrific past, that he still got to be Washington's right hand man instead of Burr.