I need the distraction

[dhampyresa]

For reasons of 2016 being fucking fired, I need to distract myself, so here's the post no one wanted: DVD commentary for the Hamilton fic I wrote yesterday, The Devil Went Down to New Jersey.

I had honestly not thought I was ever going to write fic for this musical because before I listened I listened to it all I knew about the US Founding Fathers was basically "are they the dudes on Mt Rushmore?". Add to that I felt it would be very important to match the canon tone (and I know nothing about rap/hiphop/musicals/etc + I have a tin ear for music + my English accent is, to put it mildly, complicated) and I'm a very visual person, so it was pretty much a no-go.

But I was prompted a Hamilton fic and so I had to do it. I've been listening to the entire thing at least once daily for the past week or so. I fear "The room where it happens" is never going to leave my brain.

It did the trick, though, because I originally sat down to write down the first five lines before I forgot them and emerged three hours later with 500 words and a complete fic.

I'm going to babble about it, because like I said, I really need to be distracted.

Let's start with the summary, shall we?

In which Aaron Burr
Gets an unlikely visitor
And a likewise offer.

This was originally four lines long, with "In which our narrator, / Aaron Burr, sir," replacing the first line, but Burr narrates fuck all in this, so I shortened it. I wanted the summary to be rhyme, because the whole thing is in rhyme and I would hate for any to stumble into rhyming fic by accident.

I'm going to give a couple of general things to watch out for before I dive into the text proper. The big thing I wanted was to keep Burr and the devil's way of expressing themselves distinct. Burr has spoken lines (they don't rhyme) while everything the devil says does rhyme. As a trade-off, the devil's rhyming scheme is more flexible's than Burr's strict AABBCC. On average, Burr's line are longer than the devil's and he gets the longest speeches.

I tried my best to convey physical actions, especially at the end, entirely through text/dialog.

       This is worth a second glance,
       Aaron Burr, taking a stance!

BURR
Who are you?

       I suppose, in this instance,
       You might call me -- Chance.

So. The first five lines, originally all I'd settled to write. The devil is rhyming, Burr is speaking. I chose to indent the devil's speech and preface Burr's with his name. I was originally going to also preface the devil's with "Chance" then "the devil" as Burr's perception shifted, but I felt it worked better like this (plus, when I looked up the wordcount right before I was going to do it, it came in at exactly 500, so I let it be).

BURR
Chance?
A pseudonym that gives luck a bad name
Tell me then, what's the name of your game.
And that accent, I'll wager,
Louisiana. No, --

       -- Georgia.

Where previously Chance was taking the piss at Burr's usually indecisive nature, here Burr is having none of Chance's fancy shmancy naming in French to obfuscate thing. There's a play on pseudonym/bad name. I am fairly sure there are accents where "wager" and "Georgia" rhyme -- mine's not one of them. Chance's line is not spoken, it's sung/rhyming with Burr's line above, but Burr's "Chance" is. This is the only incident in the fic of a line being shared between the two.

Chance's accent being from Georgia is of course another reference (with the title) to The Devil Went Down to Georgia. The "Louisiana" suggestion refers to a line from that song "The Devil's in the House of the Rising Sun", itself a reference to the song "House Of The Rising Sun", that starts with There is a house in New Orleans / They call the Rising Sun.

(The song reference is also foreshadowing for the ending. The Devil of Went Down to Georgia is a fairly archetypal Failboat Devil -- ie, the kind of Devil that gets outwitted in folk tales. Brittany has a bunch of folktales around this theme, such as this one.)

BURR
Ha! You're here in Jersey,
That's quite far away.

       Farther than you know.

BURR
Come here to witness my tale of woe?

Burr's first line here starts off with a spoken "Ha!", then onto singing. Chance's reply is also foreshadowing/Chance being clever by implying that Hell is further away from Jersey than Georgia. (Also, hey, Jersey Devil is a thing.) Here Burr rhymes his "woe" with Chance's "know".

Alexander aimed at the sky.
       You let your bullet fly.

BURR
What's done is done.

       And if it could be undone?

Chance's first line is of course a quote from "The world was wide enough". In contrast to the above, here it's Chance's that's rhyming with Burr.

BURR
What?

       You've lost the plot?
       Let me be plain.
       Erase this pain.
       Unfire the fatal shot
       And Hamilton doesn't die.

BURR
Could I? Would I? Should I?

Burr goes back to having one line/word of spoken text -- this is what prompts Chance's "You've lost the plot?". This is the first time Chance gets more than two lines in a row and you can see that the rhyming pattern is ABBA(C). Burr is apparently studying auxilliary verbs.

That's for you to decide:
       Take tragedy in stride
       Or -- take a deal.

BURR
I'm a lawyer. I understand the appeal.
I'm a prosecutor, not an advocate, not for the devil.

       The Boss ain't home, homie,
       It's just you and me.

You can see pretty clearly here that Burr's lines are longer than Chance's. I'm kind of stupidly proud on the pun with "appeal", ngl. There's an internal rhyme between "lawyer" and "prosecutor". Then there's the "devil's advocate" being referenced. (Again, my accent isn't one where "appeal" and "devil" would rhyme, but it can be made to rhyme.)

Then I take a cue from my buddy Billy Shakes and intentionally break the rhyming scheme to imply that shit's going to go down. There are three consecutive rhyming lines "deal"/"appeal"/"devil", but no forth line, as we jump directly to "homie"/"me". Pretty proud of "home"/"homie" too.

BURR
Is this a threat?

Gee, Burr, what do you think! This line is spoken, although "threat" does rhyme with "advocate", in Burr's previous line.

It could be.
       Between you and me
       I like you, Sir,
       Aaron Burr, Esquire.
       I'll tell you straight --
       There's a bet.

We've got "you and me" again. Then "sir"/"burr"/"esquire" ("I like you, Sir, / Aaron Burr, Esquire." is probably my favourite rhyming couplet of the whole thing.) Then we have the bet, and a call back to Burr's earlier "wager".

BURR
A bet? I was less upset
When it was a threat.

Four consecutive rhyming lines with "straight"/"bet"/"upset"/"threat" (+ internal "bet" in Burr's first line). The only other time there's an uninterrupted four lines of the same consecutive rhymes is also with this sound.

       Hear me out!
       Here's the bet: Of Burr and Hamilton,
       Without this fateful gun,
       Who do you reckon, and think twice,
       Who the President, who the Vice?
       Now you can shout.

Chance's rhyming scheme is ABBCCA this time around. There's internal rhyming with "hear"/"here" and "bet"/"fate(ful)", then "reckon" to rhyme with "gun" and "Hamilton".

BURR
I'll never be President now.

       Quite so.
       One less thing for Hamilton to worry about.

BURR
He'll never be President. Now what?
Your bet is null and void.
You must be annoyed.
I'm familiar with this irritation.
Stands to reason. I'm familiar with Hamilton.

"Quite so" is Chance's shortest full line. Chance has no patience for your blablabla, Burr. Right after that is Chance's longest line quoting/paraphrasing from "The Reynolds Pamphlet". Lots of that going around in this bit. My favourite is "He'll never be President. Now what?" (This reminds me I didn't manage to do any holorimes in this and now I feel sad.)

I enjoyed having Burr say "stands", when he's known for not taking any. And there's "reason" to rhyme with "irritation" and "Hamilton".

       But you forget
       This is no mortal bet.
       I'll rewind time
       And you'll change your mind.
       I don't mean to be unkind,
       Life can turn on a dime,
       And if you win me this bet
       Your soul I won't collect.

There's "rewind"/"mind"/"unkind" and "mean"/"win". Chance's rhyming scheme here is AABCCBAA, which is yet another one. Chance does repeat rhyming scheme in long(ish) speeches. This is the longest speech Chance makes, btw. There's the pun on "mortal", too.

BURR
You've offered me your deal.
I'll take it, devil.
Give me the contract
And I'll seal the pact.
This could stand a redesign,
I can't find the dotted line.
There are masses of pages
-- I trust you'll handle my wages --
And every one a mess.
I thought devils liked chess.
I don't mean to berate,
But this is mate in thirty-eight,
Instead of check in half the rate.
There's too much on your plate,
Everything but the kitchen sink.
Let me get my ink.
I'll take a guess.
This is where I say 'yes'.
Sharpen your quill;
Sign the deal.

Of course Chance's longest speech invites Burr's longest speech. Burr's rhyming scheme is AABBCC with zero variation. I'm rhyming "deal" and "devil" again (+ "seal") and there's the return of the four consecutive rhymes in "ate" with "berate"/"thirty-eight"/"rate"/"plate" (+ "mate").

"Redesign" goes with "sign", but I don't actually say "sign", because Burr isn't signing yet. Originally this was a lot shorter -- just the first two lines leaing directly into Chance's reply -- but that didn't work. I needed to convey that Burr was messing around with the contract without actually showing it, so he's reading through it and talking shit about it.

"Wages" is a call back to the (much) earlier "wager" and also a reference to Burr's job as a lawyer. It's the hint Chance should have taken. One of them I should say. The other is the use of "mate" against "check". ("Yes" is also rhyming with "chess" earlier in this speech -- what did I tell you about "The room where it happens" never again leaving my brain?)

I like the juxtaposition of "plate" and "sink", both things you commonly find in kitchens.

Right at the end of this speech we go back to the same rhyme we had in its first two lines: "quill"/"deal" to go with "deal"/"devil. More specifically, the first and last rhymes of the speech are "deal".

       I should have taken a hint
       And read the fine print.

FAILBOAT DEVIL! In the Brittany folktales I mentionned above the devil is often tricked by rules-lawyering and who better to do that than an actual lawyer?

BURR
You didn't think to squint. Lesson learned:
With every word you should be concerned.
I built this nation. I wrote this Constitution.
My knowledge of law is an institution.
Your contract's full of holes;
It's a wonder you get any souls!
I wrote in an amendment,
Quite the precedent!
I'll just have to be President now,
Hamilton lives and remains my foe,
And to you
I bid adieu.

And we end on a triumphant speech by Burr.

"Squint" goes with "hint"/"print" and "word" with "learned"/"concerned". I'm pretty proud of "Constitution"/"institution" as a rhyme, ngl, but not as proud as I am of "precedent"/"President". "Constitution" and "amendment" work together, as do "knowledge of the law" and "precedent". "I'll just have to be President now" is again reminiscient of "The Reynolds Pamphlet".

The last two lines are, on purpose, very short. I wanted something drastically different at the end there (and you know who has really short lines? Chance). Plus there's the giant burn of biding "Adieu" ("To God", ie "I'll see you in Heaven") to a devil.

I'll tell you the worst
At the end of the day,
It's not the musical on replay
Nor anything I did intend
That drives me 'round the bend.
Honestly I think I'm cursed.
This was such great fun
-- And I still need the distraction --
I'm ready for another run!
Bring on the interaction,
For every comment I'll reply
And give rhyming a try.

Comment need not be related;
The rule stands as stipulated.

Comments

[yhlee]

This was incredibly neat to read!

Would love to see Dido in rhyme.