We’ve seen our fair share of transformative takes on Hamilton since its debut, but this might be the most impressive yet.
For this month’s #Hamildrops—planned releases of new Hamilton and Hamilton Mixtape covers from major artists every month in 2018—Lin-Manuel Miranda got his longtime idol “Weird Al” Yankovic put his spin on on the musical. Miranda had been teasing “The Hamilton Polka” all day Thursday as the “February 30” roll-out (a.k.a. March 2) brought the song to each time zone at midnight Friday.
With an accordion in hand, Yankovic expertly mixes and blends more than a dozen songs from Hamilton into “The Hamilton Polka,” a rousing five-minute medley that takes a jazzy turn and is sure to get your feet to start tapping. Mixing Hamilton and polka shouldn’t work by any means, but yet it does.
But then again, that’s what critics once said about Hamilton.