Hear A 'Hamilton' Outtake: Benjamin F'ing Franklin

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The Decemberists' cover of "Ben Franklin's Song" from Hamilton is out now. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Courtesy of the artist

The Decemberists' cover of "Ben Franklin's Song" from Hamilton is out now.

Courtesy of the artist

It's no secret that there were many more songs conceived for Hamilton than hit the stage. Today, The Decemberists have released a song about Benjamin Franklin, with words written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

On its website, the band describes the song as "a first-person introduction" to the founding father:

"Lin said that he'd wanted to include Franklin as a character in the show initially, but it just never quite worked something about not wanting to remove the audience more than once from the action taking place in our nascent United States. Funnily enough, he said he'd imagined Franklin singing in a sort of Decemberist-y way, whatever that means. If you're a HAMILTON fan, we hope it will add a new dimension to the world of the show for you — but you can also just enjoy it as a history lesson. Franklin invented bifocals, you know. And the glass harmonica. WHAT A F***ING GUY."

And as much fun as this is, I'll just note a language advisory. If you wish to hear a clean version, we've included a streaming link below the YouTube link.

Stream the clean version on Spotify: