Cats’ Memory not in Oscars

Although incredibly affecting and certainly a major part of the climax of the film Marriage Story, Adam Driver’s performance of Stephen Sondheim’s Being Alive did not put the song in the running in the race for the coming movie awards. 

This is because Being Alive is already an existing song used to further the action or enhance a scene in a film. It was originally written for the musical Company. To qualify for the awards business, the song must have been composed specifically for a film and heard for the first time in its soundtrack.

This is the same case with Memory from Cats which is performed to glorious perfection by the Academy Award and Grammy-winning Jennifer Hudson who plays the aging but now forgotten star Grizabella in the movie version.  Note that this song was composed originally by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the stage musical Cats with lyrics by Trevor Nunn based on a poem by T.S. Eliot. 

Truth to tell, Memory is the most popular song from the show and is a showstopper in almost every performance. I do believe that it is one of the big reasons why Cats is the fourth longest-running musical on Broadway. It has this big song that everybody waits for and which is the one best remembered after watching the show.

However, this does not mean that Memory is automatically qualified to be nominated at the awards. This is because, although it comes from the musical on which the movie is based, it was not written specifically for the screen adaptation. And that is against the long-standing Hollywood rule. 

That is also the reason why to have a nominated song, Lloyd Webber composed You Must Love Me for Madonna in Evita. This time around, he wrote a new song for the Cats movie, Beautiful Ghosts, a collaboration with pop star Taylor Swift who also stars in the movie version as the cat Bombalurina.  Swift sings the new song titled Beautiful Ghosts in the picture’s end credits and it is the single release from the Cats soundtrack.

It is ballet dancer Francesca Hayward, as the young cat Victoria, who sings it in the picture. Hayward plays the young cat Victoria who is the first to take pity on Grizabella. Mashed up with Memory, Beautiful Ghosts is an introspective ballad that is both inspiring and bittersweet. It makes the plight of the cats in search of a new life in the story doubly heart-wrenching.

But no matter what, it will be the haunting Beautiful Ghosts taking center stage for the awards. Memory already boasts of a storied past starting when it was first heard in 1981. Besides, movie-goers will still get to enjoy watching Hudson belt out the classic tune when Cats opens in theaters out here next week.

Memory is a sad song that Grizabella sings while recalling her glamorous youth and pleading to be taken back by the group of cats called the Jellicles. She wants to be resurrected to a new life and it is on this evening that top cat Old Deuteronomy will make the choice. Memory requires not only a sensitive actress but also a strong singer with a wide vocal range. Hudson, who won an Oscar for her work in Dreamgirls and now plays the lead in the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, certainly fills the bill.

Some of the other famous names who have belted Memory on stage are the original Grizabellas Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley, pop stars Leona Lewis and Nicole Scherzinger and our own theater divas Lea Salonga and Joanna Ampil. Memory is also a big pop hit with the most popular recordings made by Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow and Johnny Mathis. 

As for Beautiful Ghosts, it now has its first Best Song nomination in the Best Original Song category of the 2020 Golden Globe Awards. It is up against a very formidable line-up of nominees. 

These are I’m Gonna Love Me Again, which was composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and performed also by Elton John from his biopic Rocketman; Into The Unknown from Frozen II, composed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and recorded by Idina Menzel and others in the soundtrack; Spirit from The Lion King composed by Beyoncé, Timothy McKenzie and Ilya Salmanrezadeh and performed by Beyoncé; and Stand Up from Harriet by Joshuah Brian Campbell and singer and lead star of the movie Cynthia Erivo.