Move over, alien swing band: the new Star Wars cantina belongs to Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Miranda, the creator and star of the Broadway smash hit Hamilton, revealed Monday that he has spent the last two months working on background music for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens -- as if the nightly performance of Hamilton wasn't enough for this creative workaholic.
We did. Worked on it between 6pm & 7:30 on 2 show days for the past 2 months. JJ is the best. Can't wait to see. https://t.co/pPYu8nRsxI— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 1, 2015
Miranda was able to let the cat out of the bag after J.J. Abrams appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, during which recounted his experience of going to see Hamilton and meeting Miranda during the intermission.
"If you need music for the cantina, I'll write it," Abrams recalled Miranda saying in jest. So when the movie's legendary 83-year-old composer John Williams decided that he didn't want to write the music for what Abrams calls "our version" of the first movie's famous cantina scene -- the existence of which in itself is a revelation -- the director went back to Miranda and tapped him for the job.
Given that Hamilton achieved much of its renown by leaning heavily on hip-hop, this may seem something of a strange choice for the Star Wars galaxy. Especially given that the Modal Nodes, that alien band from the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine, was basically playing a pastiche of Benny Goodman jazz records. ("They're going to swing, man!" George Lucas told his perplexed crew at the time.)
But Miranda is nothing if not a consummate composer, and Hamilton is stuffed with influences from all kinds of music. To take its finest example, The Room Where it Happens is a good old-fashioned Ragtime show-stopper.
Can Miranda match the Modal Nodes when it comes to creating earworms? One thing's for sure: If an artist can turn the life of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and his debt relief plan into an energetic game-changing musical, the Force is definitely strong with him.