The music you love when you're a teenager is always going to be

The creator of modern epic and rhythm, Lin-Manuel Miranda, once revealed a truth woven deep into the human spirit: “The music you love when you’re a teenager is always going to be the most important to you, and I find that it’s all over the score of Hamilton.” In these words, Miranda teaches us that music is not merely sound but memory, not merely melody but identity. The songs of our youth are the songs of our becoming; they mark the time when the soul first opens wide to the world, when every note cuts deeply and lingers forever.

To say “the music you love when you’re a teenager” is to speak of the season of awakening. The teenage years are when hearts burn most fiercely, when identity is forged in the fire of longing, rebellion, and discovery. In that age, music becomes more than background—it is scripture, a map, a mirror. The rap battles of the 1990s, the anthems of rock, the cries of punk, the hymns of soul—all become part of the listener’s blood. Later music may entertain, but the music of youth defines.

Miranda admits that this spirit flows “all over the score of Hamilton.” The rhythms of hip-hop, the intensity of Broadway’s drama, the lyricism of R&B, the force of rap battles—all of these were sounds that shaped him as a young man. By weaving them into the story of America’s founding, he bridged the past with the present, turning history into living song. In this, he illustrates how the music of our youth becomes not only personal memory but also creative power, giving shape to the art we create as adults.

History too affirms this wisdom. Beethoven, in his youth, was shaped by the revolutionary music of Mozart and Haydn, and those echoes thunder through his symphonies. Bob Dylan was molded by the folk traditions of his adolescence, and though his style evolved, those early influences can be heard in every chord he struck. What we love in our youth stays with us; it does not vanish but becomes the foundation upon which all else is built.

The truth is both personal and universal. The songs of youth are tied to first love, first heartbreak, first rebellion, first dream. They become timeless because they are bound to moments when life itself felt larger than we could hold. This is why a single song can transport us back decades, reawakening feelings as vivid as the day they were born. Miranda’s insight reminds us that what we carry from youth will always be sacred, no matter how much time passes.

The lesson is clear: treasure the music of your youth, but do not let it remain only in memory. Like Miranda, let it inspire your present work, your present dreams. Draw upon the rhythms, the voices, the energy that first made your heart leap, and let them fuel the art you create and the life you live now. For those sounds are not relics; they are seeds waiting to bloom again in new form.

Practically, this means: revisit the songs that shaped you, and let them remind you of who you were and who you still are. Share them with others, for in them is not only nostalgia but truth. And when you encounter the music of today’s youth, listen with respect, for you are hearing the seeds of their future selves. In this way, we honor not only the past but the ongoing power of music to shape, to guide, to awaken.

So let Miranda’s words ring as both memory and command: the music of youth is eternal, and its echoes live forever. It is the soil of identity, the rhythm of creativity, the heartbeat of generations. Embrace it, honor it, and let it live anew in the works you bring to the world, just as Hamilton became the marriage of history and hip-hop, of past and present, of timeless youth and eternal song.