Lyrics:

Memory / Cats   


The story of Memory begins with the idea for Cats, back in 1977. In that year
Andrew Lloyd Webber picked up a copy of T.S Eliot's book of poems -- poems
that his mother had read to him as a child.

Lloyd Webber's usual way of working was first to create a melody and then add
lyrics. But he was curious if he could work the process the other way around. He
wanted to compose melodies for the words of these Eliot poems that he loved
and turn them into song.

T.S Eliot's widow, Valerie, gave Trevor Nunn and Cameron Mackintosh (director
and producer for the project) some manuscripts of extra materials her husband
had written. These were poems and fragments that hadn't been included in the
original book.

The main inspiration for Cats came with the discovery of one particular poem
fragment called 'Grizabella the Glamour Cat'. There were only eight lines, but
that was enough inspiration for the team to create the show's entire storyline.

Two weeks before the 11 May opening, Lloyd Webber was concerned that the new show lacked a big
hit song. So for this one song, Lloyd Webber went back to his normal habit and wrote the melody first,
before a lyric was created.

Trevor Nunn then produced a lyric, based on T.S Eliot's poem 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night' and the
song Memory, sung by Grizabella the Glamour Cat, came to life -- just barely in time for opening night.

As audience response soon proved, Cats most definitely had its hit song!

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