Cat Meditation @ 4am

Are you blind when you're born? 
Can you see in the dark?
Can you look at a king?
Would you sit on his throne?
Can you say of your bite that it's worse than your bark?
Are you cock of the walk
When you're walking alone?


Because jellicles are and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles would
Jellicles would and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do


When you fall on your head, do you land on your feet?
Are you tense when you sense there's a storm in the air?
Can you find your way blind when you're lost in the street?
Do you know how to go to the heaviside layer?


Because jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do


Can you ride on a broomstick to places far distant?
Familiar with candle,
with book, and with bell?
Were you Whittington's friend?
The Pied Piper's assistant?
Have you been an alumnus of heaven and hell?
Are you mean like a minx?
Are you lean like a lynx?
Are you keen to be seen when you're smelling a rat?
Were you there when the pharaohs commissioned the Sphinx?


If you were, and you are, you're a jellicle cat
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
We can dive through the air like a flying trapeze
We can turn double somersaults, bounce on a tire
We can run up a wall, we can swing through the trees
We can balance on bars, we can walk on a wire
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats


Can you sing at the same time in more than one key?
Duets by Rossini


and waltzes by Strauss?
And can you (as cats do) begin with a 'C'?


That always triumphantly brings down the house?
Jellicle cats are queens of the nights
Singing at astronomical heights
Handling pieces from The Messiah
Hallelujah, angelical Choir
Jellicle cats are queens of the nights
Singing at astronomical heights
Handling pieces from The Messiah
Hallelujah, angelical Choir
The mystical divinity of unashamed felinity
Round the cathedral rang 'Vivat'
Life to the everlasting cat!
Feline, fearless, faithful and true
To others who do-what
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicle cats sing jellicle chants
Jellicles old and jellicles new
Jellicle song and jellicle dance
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Practical cats, dramatical cats
Pragmatical cats, fanatical cats
Oratorical cats, Delphicoracle cats
Skeptical cats, Dispeptical cats
Romantical cats, Pedantical cats
Critical and parasitical cats
Allegorical cats, metaphorical cats
Statistical cats and mystical cats
Political cats, hypocritical cats
Clerical cats, hysterical cats
Cynical cats, rabbinical cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats


The Naming of Cats
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
It isn't just one of your holiday games
You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey
All of them are sensible, everyday names
But I tell you a cat needs a name that's particular
A name that's peculiar and more dignified
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular?
Or spread out his whiskers or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo or Coricopat
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum
Names that never belong to more than one cat
But above and beyond there's still one name left over
And that is the name that you will never guess
The name that no human research can discover
But the cat himself knows and will never confess
When you notice a cat in profound meditation
The reason, I tell you, is always the same
His mind is engaged in rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name
His ineffable, effable, effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name
Name, name, name, name, name, name

The young and innocent white cat Victoria performs a solo dance. Munkustrap, a large grey tabby who serves as the show's narrator, explains that the Jellicle Cats meet once a year to rejoice! He also explains that they are waiting for their leader, the wise Old Deuteronomy, who will choose which one of the Jellicle Cats will this year journey to the Heavyside Layer to be reborn to a new life!

The Invitation To The Jellicle Ball
Jellicle cats come out tonight
Jellicle cats come one, come all
The jellicle moon is shining bright
Jellicles come to the jellicle ball
Jellicle cats come out tonight
Jellicles come to the jellicle ball


Jellicle cats meet once a year
At the jellicle ball where we all rejoice
And the jellicle leader will soon appear
And make what is known as the jellicle choice
When Old Deuteronomy just before dawn
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife
Announces the cat who can now be reborn
And come back to different jellicle life
Because waiting up there is the heaviside layer
Full of wonders one jellicle only will see
Jellicles ask because jellicles dare
Who will it be?

The evening takes a somber turn when the outcast figure "Grizabella, The Glamour Cat" appears. Although she is a Jellicle Cat, the rest of the tribe shun her. She had left the tribe years ago to explore the outside world. The outside world has been hard on her, however, and she who was once a beautiful and glamorous feline is now tattered and torn. Although she wants to return, the other cats are cruel, clawing and hissing at her. But Grizabella is proud, and she vows to return.

 Grizabella, the Glamour Cat
Remark the cat who hesitates toward you
In the light of the door which opens on her like a grin
You see the border of her coat is torn and stained with sand
And you see the corner of her eye twist like a crooked pin

She haunted many a low resort
Near the grimy road of Tottenham Court
She flitted about the No Man's Land
From The Rising Sun to The Friend at Hand

And the postman sighed as he scratched his head
"You'd really had thought she ought to be dead"
And who would ever suppose that
That was Grizabella, the glamour cat

Grizabella, the glamour cat

Grizabella, the glamour cat

And who would ever suppose that
That was Grizabella, the glamour cat

Grizabella intrudes once more, wanting to rejoin her family and be a part of the celebration. The cats again scorn her. She is left to contemplate her "Memory" of the time before she left the tribe, when she was once young, beautiful and happy.

Silence-not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory? She is smiling alone
In the lamplight the withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Every street lamp seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Someone mutters and the streetlamp gutters
And soon it will be morning

Memory-all alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days, I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again


Excerpts from Cats, the musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.

Full script here:  Cats Lyrics

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