My sister spent years trying to get me to listen to the musical Hamilton. She loved it, and thought I would as well.
Now, I do love musicals, but I think it was the hipster in me that regarded the cultural phenomenon that was Hamilton as overblown, and I resisted listening to Hamilton for a long time. "If it's that popular, it's got to be horrible." Right?
Finally, I saw Lin-Manuel Miranda on, I think, Saturday Night Live, or something, and I thought, "Hmm, that song seemed cool, maybe I'll give it a chance." After one full run through I was hooked. It was on repeat for at least a few weeks, it was scary how much I was listening to it.
When my daughter tried to get me to listen to the musical Six, a modern retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII through pop music, I immediately gave it a listen. I didn't want to make that same mistake.
And, honestly, it didn't click with me the first time. Nor the second. In my head I was comparing the pop-stylizations of Six to the pop and hip-hop styles of Hamilton, and on a surface level I found them way too similar. But, I kept trying and eventually learned to listen to the songs of Six as a stand alone set, as well as started to pay more attention to the lyrics and got much more involved with the stories that Six was trying to tell. As soon as I was able to wrap my head around what was happening here, I was hooked.
With music, book, and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss., Six presents each of the wives of Henry VIII (Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr) with each wife taking turns to tell their story to determine who suffered the most from their common husband.
Today's selection is Anna of Cleves song "Get Down". She was the one where Henry saw a portrait of Anna by renowned painter Hans Holbein, he said, "Ja!", but when he saw her in person, he cried, "Nein!" I mean, obviously it's more complicated than that. Check out the lyrics.
Or, read a book. That's always good, too.
Okay ladies, let’s get in Reformation....
