Film & TV NewsListen to ‘Beautiful Ghosts,’ the Song Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber Wrote for the Cats MovieSwift dropped the song November 15 ahead of the film’s December 20 premiere.
By
Ryan McPhee
November 15, 2019
Taylor Swift, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Swift as Bombalurina
There’s still a month to go before Cats hits the big screen, but “at least you have ‘Beautiful Ghosts’” in the meantime.
Taylor Swift, on the heels of further publicizing a dispute with her former label, dropped her cover of “Beautiful Ghosts,” featured in the upcoming movie musical, November 15. The pop star co-wrote the song with Cats composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Take a listen below.
While Swift plays Bombalurina in the film, the song is performed on screen by Victoria, played by Francesca Hayward. Its lyrics ("Born into nothing/with them I have something/something to cling to") evoke the longing for community after abandonment—just as a stray cat would, say, upon attending a Jellicle Ball. Judi Dench is slated to perform a reprise of the number as Old Deuteronomy; Swift’s studio recording will play over the credits.
“What I couldn’t believe was the extraordinary beauty of these lyrics that Taylor had written,” director Tom Hooper said previously. “It was as if someone had come into the film I was in the middle of making and read the script, met the actors, and seen the world, and reflected back to me a profound understanding of what we’re trying to do with the movie.”
Or, as Swift says: “If you can’t get T. S. Eliot, get T. S.”
The movie, out December 20, will also star Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger, James Corden as Bustopher Jones, Ian McKellen as Gus, Idris Elba as Macavity, Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots, and Robert Fairchild as Munkustrap.
Filmed in 2023, the one-night-only event featured Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Peter Friedman, and more from the Ahrens and Flaherty musical's original cast.
