This is gonna be bad cause I’m tired but.
Beautiful Ghosts. Oh boy.
So firstly, the song is so repetitive there’s not much to analyze because once I read something it was repeated like thirty times, and half of the lyrics were... just trying to be ‘cool’ and ‘creative’, but in that ‘we’re not going to try so just throw some darts and write what they hit’ way and there’s absolutely no way to analyze them without me going insane so I’ll basically go over the really bad parts.
“Follow me home if you dare to
I wouldn't know where to lead you...”
Ok so obviously the other cats are supposed to be her ‘home’ now. But she follows that by saying she wouldn’t know where to take her... well, that’s kinda obvious. Victoria’s been with the others for what, three? Four hours? Why is Victoria feeling a little out of place a horrible tragedy? She’s trying to break into tight knit groups. What, is she supposed to be best friends with near strangers immediately? I mean half of them have been focused on her all night but we’ll get to that later.
“Should I take chances when no one took chances on me?
So I watch from the dark, wait for my life to start...”
Oh would you look at the time, it’s later. Victoria, sweetheart, from the moment they tore your bag open Hetero Mistoffelees has been attempting to flirt with you. Munkustrap has included you in a bunch of things including introducing you to Rebelanydots and Bustopher Corden. You’ve danced and sang with them. I may be missing something, but that’s at least taking half a chance in my opinion. Just saying. Also? Yeah no, you’re not hiding in the dark.
“All that I wanted was to be wanted...”
Thank god they built up your backstory and character up so well that this line resonates with the audience and isn’t just a weak attempt at a ‘:’( I was abandoned’ character that in reality is a paper thin character that compensated the missing character traits so much that your abandonment issues became your entire personality. Thank god.
At least you have something...”
Ding ding ding! We’ve done it folks! We’ve found a line that unlocks all of my pent up rage! Because HOLY SHIT this line pisses me off so much it hurts. Because yes, writers of Beautiful Ghosts and Cats (2019), Victoria’s thirty seconds of abandonment and loneliness before she was immediately intregrated into another society and got friends and a admirer literally immediately DEFENTLY compairs to Grizzabella’s literal years of banishment and hatred from the tribe. Yep.
“Scared to call them my friends and be broken again
Is this hope just a mystical dream?”
I feel like originally the movie was just about Victoria and her backstory, with beautiful CGI and practical effects, with Beautiful Ghosts coming after she meets the Jellicals at some cat party or some shit and the other person she’s singing to is herself in the past or something. But the one person who actually saw Cats The Musical, the janator, mentioned “y’all think people may not be lookin for this in a Cats movie” and they immediately trashed it and gave us the monstrosity we have today. But, they needed an extra song and they looked at their trash and said ‘fuck it’ and put BG in anyway.
“And so maybe my home isn't what I had known
What I thought it would be
But I feel so alive with these phantoms of night
And I know that this life isn't safe but it's wild and it's free!”
Ok so right off the bat I feel like the first two lines are repetitive, as because if you had a home, that’s the home you would think it would be. You don’t have a home and think, ‘yeah, my home will be this.’ I mean if you’re a human, maybe. But Victoria is a cat. A literal slightly more coherent cat. So -10 points. Also? The two points that might be considered ‘dangerous’ thus far in her story is I think maybe? One Macavity encounter? And it was him just him kidnapping Bustopher Corden, and when Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer abandoned her and that’s because they were war criminals in the movie.
“All that I wanted was to be wanted
I'll never wander London streets alone and haunted
With them I have something
I never knew I'd love this world they've let me into”
Hey professional writers, here’s some advice... a), changing some words doesn’t magically make the verse powerful, and b), this is extra true when the song behind it has as much weight as literal air.
So in conclusion, the song is a piece of absolute horrible writing that was clearly trying to do what Memory was to the OG musical, but tried to do this by taking away from Grizz’s character and song and trying to have Victoria be the UWU main character and it sorry you all had to read this with your own two eyes I apologize