Dear everyone who probably still doesn't care to know any more about me than you already know, I'm about to tell you about another one of my childhood loves. The last time I did this, I mentioned that there was this string of movies that all played some huge, important role in my odd upbringing, and that is accurate. Along with Anastasia, which is the first one of those movies I told you about, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical CATS is another.

Probably of every movie on this list of childhood loves, CATS has been the most influential and possibly the one that's been there the longest. I know the word "influential" seems funny because it's legitimately a musical about cats, but hopefully by the end of this post it'll maybe make a little more sense to you.

BACK STORY

When I say this movie has been around in my life the longest, I mean that I've been watching it since even before I can remember. If I didn't have video evidence of myself watching it, I probably would have never believed my mom about the things that I used to do as a very young human whenever this musical was playing on our television. But alas, I do have video evidence (and it is embarrassing).

According to my mother, this is how I got into it: when I was really young, we had a couple cats and I loved them to death, I guess, and I also loved music. She used to rent these old VHS tapes from our public library that had these two giant mice, a blue one and a pink one, and they sang songs everywhere they went, and I used to stand in front of the TV in my diaper about two feet away (no wonder I have glasses now...) from the screen dancing and attempting to sing along. In fact, my first ever favorite song in the entire world was "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus.

(Squidward voice: "Here. Please hit me over the head as hard as you can. Don't hold back.")

Yeah, so that happened. But one day I guess I grew tired of the same old movies, and Mom had to go out and buy me something else. She thinks she was at Walmart when she saw CATS on sale. I don't know how to properly describe to you how out of it this part of Wisconsin is, but just believe me when I say that no one in my family, let alone my mom, has ever heard of this musical or Andrew Lloyd Webber or could even name another musical at all off the top of their heads. The only reason she bought it was because she figured I loved cats and I loved music, so what wouldn't I love about this?

And, uh, yeah, she was right. I became obsessed. I watched nothing else for months. In fact, originally, Mom grew to hate the film very quickly due to how often I wanted it playing. However, one day she said that I made her sit and watch it with me, and even though she didn't understand the story they were trying to tell, she finally understood what little Carissa loved so much about it, and it was the music. But I'll get into that later.

WHAT THE HECK IS IT ABOUT THEN?

So, CATS is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on T.S. Eliot's collection of poems called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Eliot apparently used to write poems for his grandchildren under the name "Old Possum" and would read the poems like little stories. Every time his grandchildren would come over (or he'd go see them), he'd bring them a new poem about a new cat. Eventually, he let the poems be gathered and published as a collection, but for a long time nobody knew he'd written them. They were, according to the first publication, written by this Old Possum.

Anyway, the musical is known as "the most famous musical of all time" and is apparently the longest running Broadway musical ever according to the back of the DVD case. I'd give you the summary from the back of the case as well, but it's too long, so here's the Wikipedia one:

The musical centers on the "Jellicle Tribe", a tribe of cats who meet once a year at the Jellicle Ball, where they rejoice with their leader, Old Deuteronomy. During the Jellicle Ball, only one of the cats will be selected by Old Deuteronomy to go to the Heaviside Layer, be reborn, and come back to a different life (which is known as a "Jellicle Life") just before dawn. The cats who may be considered for this honor introduce themselves.

That sums up the plot pretty well. What it doesn't sum up is the music, which I keep saying I'm going to talk about, so I might as well do that now.

THE MUSIC

God this musical is so strong lyrically, and of course that's because most of the lyrics come from poems by T.S. Eliot which are obviously bound to be fantastic, but even the songs that aren't from the poems are written crazy well. The entire prologue, "Jellicle Songs For Jellicle Cats", isn't derived from any of the poems, but it's still easily my favorite number. I just, everything about this musical I adore, but this song especially gets me every single time. I'll give you an example of what I mean by that after I rave about the rest of the music for a second.

I know that one of the main things people like to make fun of this movie for is that, how can it be taken seriously? People can't relate to the story, adults are dressed as cats and are dancing around a stage with a junkyard set, and they're singing songs with intricately detailed lyrics about what kinds of cats they are and what a Jellicle cat – which isn't even a real cat tribe – is. And like, I get that. But does every musical have to have some profound meaning that changes your life every time you watch it? No. It doesn't. Make fun of CATS all you want and refuse to watch it all you want, but you're living a sadder life than I am, okay? Okay.

(That was mean and I'm not actually serious, but, to a lesser degree I did mean something similar.)

But the songs are all great. Some of my personal favorites are: the "Prologue" (like I said), "The Rum Tum Tugger", "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer", "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat", and "Mr. Mistoffelees". There's also this one number called "Pekes and the Pollicles/The Great Rumpus Cat" and it's got such a fun tune. I find that whenever I read the corresponding poem, I read it to the tune of the song because I literally can't help it. It's just automatic, and I think that's fun, to be able to read a poem and know that it's a poem but hear it as a song in your head.

The most popular song from the musical is definitely "Memories," which is sung by Elaine Page (known as Grizabella in the film). My high school band even played it for one of my school's band concerts recently. If you've heard any of the songs, it was probably this one. It isn't bad, but it's not my favorite. When I was younger I used to make my mom fastfoward through it (actually I used to make her fastfoward through any part with Grizabella because the music scared me).

STORY TIME

I love telling this story so I'm going to share it with you whether you care about it or not. When I was in the seventh grade, my sister was in the fifth grade. Fifth grade is the first year you can be in band at my school, so it was her first year. Generally during your first couple years, the band director you have will take everyone to see either some concert band performance or a musical or anything music-related as a sort of field trip to keep you interested. God knows I have no idea what concert my fifth grade band was taken to see, but I'll remember what my sister's band got to see for the rest of my life.

At the time I was in the seventh grade, one of my best friends was this guy named Garrett, and his mom was the fifth grade band director. This probably ended up being super beneficial for me.

My sister brought home a permission slip one day to go see CATS live, and I'm pretty sure that this was around the time when I hadn't watched the movie in ages. It wasn't that I didn't like it anymore, it was just that there were so many other things to discover at that age, if that makes sense. So to be honest, I had mostly just forgotten I'd ever been so into it. Until, of course, I saw that permission slip.

I called Garrett immediately per my mother's request and had him ask if she and I could accompany the fifth grade band when they went to see it, and thankfully, as long as we paid for our own tickets it was no problem. Garrett decided to join us too because I think he was curious about my sudden excitement over this musical that he's never heard of.

The day of that musical was intense. I was antsy the entire ride there, and then I was even more antsy while I sat between my mother and Garrett in the auditorium waiting for it to begin. And then when it did finally begin – if I remember correctly – I hit Garrett much harder than I probably should have to make sure he was paying attention during the overture. But the part I'll always remember was when the overture turned into the Prologue.

My mom said she couldn't remember what she was watching more, the musical or me, because when the Prologue started, I guess I began wearing an expression that she'd never be able to describe to me if she tried. Although she doesn't remember my face, I definitely remember how I felt in that moment, and it's next to impossible to explain now. I became emotional, amazed; I was elated. I felt like a toddler again, sitting in front of my TV screen and being completely taken by this musical.

Halfway through the Prologue, Garrett leaned over and asked me if I was crying, and it turned out that I had been. I actually started laughing, then, because I felt ridiculous, but I couldn't believe I was seeing this musical live. I couldn't believe I was so lucky. Guys, I didn't even cry at the One Direction concert. That's how emotional I was about it.

I still have the ticket, and I'm saving it for the day that I forget I got to see the real deal, though I'm hoping that never happens.

Wow, this was so long-winded, I'm sorry. I'm really passionate about this one. I'm pretty sure Maria and our friend Chelsea both hate when I talk about it so much, but oh well.

This is a film that I intend to raise my children on, so you know I'm going to recommend that you all watch it if you haven't already. At least do it so that you can say you've seen "the most famous musical of all time". Watch it so that if you want to make fun of it, at least you aren't doing it blindly; at least you'll know what you're talking about. Yes, it's about cats. No, it doesn't get much deeper than that. But it's amazing. I'm almost twenty, and I still think it's amazing. I just bought it on DVD because our VHS tape is getting a little worn out, and I've watched it twice in the last three days, if that tells you anything.

Okay, I'm stopping myself. Have a lovely week, everyone.

۴k