My Selection — “You’ll Be Back” from the musical “Hamilton”
A song by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “You’ll Be Back” from the 2015 musical Hamilton, sung by Jonathan Groff, comically illustrates a king’s view of his “subjects” in a love-hate-kill relationship.
It begins as a love ballad — and a much-needed comic relief, similar to “King Herod’s Song” from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar — don’t we need to laugh at the high and mighty and idiotic?
The 7th song in the musical delivers a sarcastic punch in tone and theme of King George III who sings earnestly and pathetically to a group of colonists, as an apostrophe, who will never be back.
The title is ironic; because, obviously, The United States does not come back to Britain. The irony is established early: especially with the jaunty, toe-tapping, leg-swinging, finger-waving beat.
The song is one of a toxic love relationship — with the male making all sorts of pronouncements and threats and predictions.
When the king sings, “you’re my favorite subject” we can take that line as ironic too. Manuel adds more to this line in an amplified manner, by saying, “my sweet, submissive subject, my loyal, royal subject.”
