Song
Beautiful Ghosts
Non-Album Songs · 2019 · Track 7
Co-written
Written byTaylor Swift, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Produced byGreg Wells, Tom Hooper, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Details
- Stated inspiration
- Written with Andrew Lloyd Webber for Cats (2019), from the perspective of Victoria, a young cat longing for belonging and afraid of never having "beautiful ghosts" of days gone by; a response to the show's signature song Memory.
Ghosts
Structural
Supernatural & Gothic
“But at least you have beautiful ghosts”
The envy in this song is for other people's hauntings. Having ghosts means having had a life worth remembering, so what the others carry reads to her as an inheritance rather than a burden.
Lore & Lyrics
“So I'll dance with these beautiful ghosts”
The verb is what changes. The earlier choruses leave the ghosts to other people, and this one has her dancing with them. Company, not envy, and the world she was never let into is the one she is now inside.
Lore & Lyrics