Memory (Cats song)

"Memory"
Song by Andrew Lloyd Webber
from the album Cats: Complete Original Broadway Cast Recording
Released1981
GenreShow tune
Composer(s)Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyricist(s)Trevor Nunn

"Memory" is a show tune composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Trevor Nunn based on poems by T. S. Eliot. It was written for the 1981 musical Cats, where it is sung primarily by the character Grizabella as a melancholic remembrance of her glamorous past and as a plea for acceptance. "Memory" is the climax of the musical and by far its best-known song, having achieved mainstream success outside of the musical. According to musicologist Jessica Sternfeld, writing in 2006, it is "by some estimations the most successful song ever from a musical."[1]

Elaine Paige originated the role of Grizabella in the West End production of Cats and was thus the first to perform the song publicly on stage. "Memory" was named the Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the 1982 Ivor Novello Awards.[2] In 2020, Jessie Thompson of the Evening Standard wrote, "Paige’s version set the standard and enabled Memory to become one of the most recognisable musical theatre songs of all time."[3]

  1. ^ Sternfeld 2006, pp. 113, 157
  2. ^ "The Ivors 1982". The Ivors. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
  3. ^ "Memory covers ranked: From Elaine Paige's Cats debut to Nicole Scherzinger's take on the classic". Evening Standard. Retrieved 30 November 2021.