Cats (Memory) Question

[Albert]

I was clicking around Youtube and somehow ended up watching some old CATS clips. It's one of the first shows I ever got exposed to and so I knew the songs long before I could understand what was going on. I'm ashamed to say that more than a decade after I saw it, there's still something I don't understand in this children's show.

What does Grizabella mean when she says "if you touch me you'll understand what happiness is?"

I really don't get how that works. Will you understand her sorrow and therefore her joy at being accepted again? Will you yourself learn happiness because you saved someone else? Some other explanation...? I'm confused

[IchBinRory]

Oct 8, 2008 9:56:03 GMT -5 Albert said:

I was clicking around Youtube and somehow ended up watching some old CATS clips. It's one of the first shows I ever got exposed to and so I knew the songs long before I could understand what was going on. I'm ashamed to say that more than a decade after I saw it, there's still something I don't understand in this children's show.

What does Grizabella mean when she says "if you touch me you'll understand what happiness is?"

I really don't get how that works. Will you understand her sorrow and therefore her joy at being accepted again? Will you yourself learn happiness because you saved someone else? Some other explanation...? I'm confused

True this line can be confusing and it depends on what way you see it.

1. It can be by just touching her you'll know what she felt or was feeling.
2. It could also be she is feeling at the lowest point and just by touching her you'll realize how better off and happier you are than she is.

I prefer number 2 cause it makes the most sense.

[Milady]

I've always taken it to mean that she craves attention and physical affection and that her happiness would be palpable (i.e. you could actually feel it for yourself) if you were to touch her.

[santtu]

Oct 8, 2008 9:56:03 GMT -5 Albert said:

What does Grizabella mean when she says "if you touch me you'll understand what happiness is?"

I really don't get how that works. Will you understand her sorrow and therefore her joy at being accepted again? Will you yourself learn happiness because you saved someone else? Some other explanation...? I'm confused

To me, it's always been a reference to the earlier lines of the song:

"Touch me!
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun..."

She's been an outcast for so long that simply by touching her you'll recognize her existance - and after being shut out for so long, a simple touch would mean so much to her (acceptance, warmth, caring, knowing that someone has noticed her...), that someone touching her would show her she's not alone.

So that "you'll understand what happiness is", to me, is referring to her happiness if someone would touch her, reach out to her and end her loneliness.

[Fantasma da Opera]

I have always understanded it the way santtu did too.
and when I saw it live it even reeinforced that idea to me.