The fabulous Kelly Clarkson talked to iHeart Radio recently about her cover version of Hamilton’s ‘It’s Quiet Uptown‘. A song Clarkson recorded for ‘The Hamilton Mixtape‘, an album that features songs from the Broadway hit ‘Hamilton‘ by various artists, and a song about Alexander Hamilton’s son being killed, and the grief he and his wife suffered afterward.
As Clarkson says about ‘It’s Quiet Uptown, “It’s the saddest song ever”.
So why did Kelly Clarkson decide to cover ‘It’s Quiet Uptown‘?
“When I was given ‘It’s Quiet Uptown‘, I hadn’t seen ‘Hamilton‘. So I was eight months pregnant with my son, and it was just about the son dying in the song, and I was like ‘This is the worst thing to send to a pregnant woman ever’.
But it was kind of cool because my producer and I had never seen the musical, so we didn’t have any pressure. because I definitely think we would have had if we had seen the musical.
So, we ended up going to the studio. They wanted us to make something a little more like….they were like “If you heard this song on the radio, what do you think it would sound like. Because obviously it’s from a Broadway musical, and it’s in Broadway musical form. And it’s this epic moment in the musical. So we just kinda did what we thought would be cool with it. Keep it dark, but keep moments that were uplifting and big. Just kind of keep the essence of the song.”
Watch Kelly Clarkson talk about recording ‘It’s Quiet Uptown‘, other singers on the album, and what it was like finally seeing ‘Hamilton‘ in the video below.