Memory "Cats"

The song builds in the way many great theater ballads do: it starts small and ends big. It opens quietly, almost hesitantly, with a simple rising melodic phrase played or sung softly, as though the character singing it is thinking out loud rather than performing. In "Cats," this is the aging, bedraggled cat Grizabella, remembering better days. A first verse stays close to that intimate feeling, with light orchestral accompaniment leaving room for the tune to breathe. A second verse repeats the melody a step or two higher, a common songwriting trick that makes the listener feel the music is climbing even before the volume increases. From there the orchestra thickens, strings swell underneath, and the tune, now doubled by more instruments or voices, arrives at a final, full-throated repetition of the main phrase. Listen for the way the same handful of notes returns three or four times, each time with more instruments behind it, more harmony underneath it, and more emotional weight. In an orchestral or instrumental arrangement without singers, expect a solo instrument, often violin, cello, or saxophone, to carry the tune where a voice would, with the orchestra filling in the surrounding harmonies and the buildup.

"Memory" was written for Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats," which opened in London in 1981 and on Broadway in 1982. The musical is based on T. S. Eliot's poetry collection "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," though Eliot wrote no lyrics for this song. Lloyd Webber composed the melody, and the lyrics were written by the show's director, Trevor Nunn, who drew on imagery from Eliot's poem "Rhapsody on a Windy Night." In the musical, the song is sung by the character Grizabella, an outcast former glamour cat, and became the emotional high point of the show. It was released as a single before the musical even opened and became a major hit on its own, recorded by dozens of artists. Because of its popularity outside the theater, orchestras frequently perform instrumental arrangements of "Memory" on pops programs.