Lin Manuel Miranda Sings Trump’s Long Sentence
Original, creative, and imaginative, Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical rendition of Trump’s run-on sentence is, to me, a fantastic example of creative non-fiction. Miranda takes one sentence from Trump and re-presents it word for word changing only the medium in which it is spoken to radically change the meaning and present his own interpretation not only of the sentence but also on Trump himself and his entire campaign. By tactics such as adaptation and de-familiarization Miranda is able to use his talent in composing to transform one sentence into a political statement.
By adapting speech into music Miranda puts a creative spin on the sentence to make it his own. When re-presenting the news it is important to make sure the spin you put on it is original and different in order to make the difference clear the message apparent, it is what takes news media and makes it art. Miranda by adapting Trump’s sentence into a full on musical number has claimed it, he is now able to say whatever he wants through his musical interpretation and it is understood that it is his take on it, the meaning is different than whatever was originally intended by Trump when he first said it.
By presenting the sentence in a musical format for Miranda de-familiarizes it and that, in essence, is what the message is all about. The idea of a musical number is to present something that cannot be truthfully conveyed in normal speech and making it clear through song. Music reveals the feelings, messages, and intentions of a person. By singing this sentence though, it has the opposite effect. The meaning becomes less clear as the song goes on, the words become meaningless and nonsensical.
This is Miranda’s message about Trump, his words sound important but are essentially empty. The musical sounds like it’s really something, Miranda sings with confidence and bravado and even knowing what it was I was swept up in it. If you do not listen to the words this could pass as a real musical number, you hear vaguely things about family and determination but other than that you can easily tune out the words and believe there is a story being told. Then when you listen attentively to the words it all falls apart. The words have no meaning or point and by the end you have no idea what was even said. This is Miranda’s take on Trump’s speech and his whole campaign. His speeches sound like something, he yells and pounds his fist and speaks with confidence. The crowds are riled up, they like what they hear overall, but when you take a closer look into Trump’s actual words, it’s meaningless. His sentences often do not make sense and his points are at most opinionated rants. Miranda does this by de-familiarizing the long sentence in a more obvious way. By taking the words and putting them in this format the meaninglessness of it is front and center.
The format of the song further implies this critique of Trump through the various changes in tempo and melody. The constantly changing song mirrors the speech pattern that Trump displays at his rallies. He is always using variation in his speeches, he shouts and gets angry and then in the next sentence he is soft spoken and humble. He is taking the audience on a ride, manipulating their emotions until they learn to wait for his emotional queue for what to feel. Miranda’s song does this too, at certain points the song is loud and almost militaristic with a marching beat and in the next moment the song sounds like one about reflection, it’s calm and a little bit sad before becoming passionate again. The words spoken in this matter match the emotion Miranda assigned to it, but that furthers the point as it shows how Trump’s one sentence goes through multiple emotions and messages at once to the point where it sounds confused and cluttered. Again the meaning of the words is lost.
Re-presenting news is an important aspect of creative non-fiction, as it allows one to respond to the news in a creative way that lets the story itself take on ones own take which, to me, makes a piece all the more powerful. Miranda presents us with a great example of this, creating political art using only his own musical talent and a sentence by Donald Trump. He uses Trump’s own words exactly as they are written but he adapts it into a full musical number. In doing that he changes the meaning to put forth his own interpretation and even argument about Trump.