"Memory" is a show tune composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Trevor Nunn based on a poem by T. S. Eliot. It was written for the 1981 musical "Cats", where it is sung primarily by the character Grizabella as a melancholic remembrance of her glamorous past and as a plea for acceptance. "Memory" is the climax of the musical and by far its best-known song, having achieved mainstream success outside of the musical. According to musicologist Jessica Sternfeld, it is "by some estimations the most successful song ever from a musical."