The Megamusical

E. Sources of Lyrics in Cats

367 Appendix E: Sources of Lyrics in Cats Most of the poems taken from T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats underwent minor changes for the stage. These included things like the occasional cutting of a stanza, the adjusting of pronouns to fit the speakers, and a bit of rearranging of a couplet here and there, but in general the lyrics are very close to Eliot’s original. “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” • Sections of Eliot’s unpublished poem “Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats” with additional text by Trevor Nunn “The Naming of Cats’’ • Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats “The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball” • a quatrain from “The Song of the Jellicles” from Old Possum, then a verse by Nunn “The Old Gumbie Cat” • Eliot’s Old Possum “The Rum Tum Tugger” • Eliot’s Old Possum “Grizabella the Glamour Cat” • Introduction is taken from Eliot’s poem “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” and combines a verse about a fallen woman with a reference to a cat; then the unpublished Eliot fragment “Grizabella the Glamour Cat” “Bustopher Jones” • Eliot’s Old Possum “Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer” • Eliot’s Old Possum “Old Deuteronomy” • Eliot’s Old Possum “The Pekes and the Pollicles” • Eliot’s Old Possum, plus an insertion from Eliot’s poem “The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs” “The Jellicle Ball” • Eliot’s “The Song of the Jellicles” from Old Possum “The Moments of Happiness” • From Eliot’s poem “The Dry Salvages” from Four Quartets “Gus the Theatre Cat” • Eliot’s Old Possum, plus a new tag line for segue purposes “Growltiger’s Last Stand” • Eliot’s Old Possum, and the insertion of a verse in Italian “Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat” • Eliot’s Old Possum “Macavity” • Eliot’s Old Possum “The Magical Mr. Mistoffelees” • Eliot’s Old Possum “Memory” • Bits of Eliot’s “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” mixed with lyrics by Nunn “Journey to the Heaviside Layer” • From an Eliot letter; Nunn added a few words “The Ad-dressing of Cats” • Eliot’s Old Possum ...