Adaptation
Two weeks before the opening of Cats in May 1981, Webber wrote the melody for "Memory" and then Trevor Nunn wrote the lyrics, based on T. S. Eliot’s “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” and “Preludes”. The name Grizabella was from the title of another poem "Grizabella the Glamour Cat" by Eliot.
| phrases T. S. Eliot wrote in Rhapsody on a Windy Night |
adaptation by Trevor Nunn for Cats |
|---|---|
| Twelve o'clock | Midnight |
| The moon has lost her memory | Has the moon lost her memory? |
| She is alone | She is smiling alone |
| Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum |
Every street lamp seems to beat a fatalistic warning |
| The street lamp sputtered The street lamp muttered |
Someone mutters and a street lamp sputters |
| With all the old nocturnal smells | The stale cold smell of morning |
| Memory! | All alone with the memory |
| Sleep, prepare for life | Look, a new day has begun |
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Famous quotes containing the word adaptation:
“In youth the human body drew me and was the object of my secret and natural dreams. But body after body has taken away from me that sensual phosphorescence which my youth delighted in. Within me is no disturbing interplay now, but only the steady currents of adaptation and of sympathy.”
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