Webber shared via Instagram:

Taylor’s lyric for Beautiful Ghosts is
brilliant and her emotional performance of our song must be among the very best I’ve ever had.

Writers Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber alongside Director Tom Hooper talked at length about how the song came into being:

As transcribed by a fan on Tumblr, Swift told Zane Lowe about the original version of the song:

I knew it would be right after Jennifer Hudson sings ‘Memory,’ and a young little kitten reflects off what she just heard and gives her, sort of her counter point of view. Because ‘Memory’ is Grizabella singing about how she had all these beautiful, incredible moments in her past, she had these glittering occasions where she felt beautiful and wanted, and now she doesn’t feel that way anymore. Okay, so what if you have this kitten who’s been deserted and tossed out, and she’s had to wander around the streets of London, looking where she’s going to find a home. She would be thinking, ‘At least you had those!’ The first line that came to me is, ‘And the memories were lost long ago, but at least you have beautiful ghosts.’ I just wanted it to be like, I just wanted to get in the head of the character if she was hearing someone lamenting about wonderful, majestic, incredible times, an extraordinary life behind her. And a young person thinking, ‘What if I never have any of that in my life? What if that’s lost on me? What if I don’t get that ever? At least you have that to cling to.’ […] It came together really well. I learned later they had this beautiful piece of music, but they didn’t know what they wanted the cat to say. I was like, ‘I got you. I know what that cat would say.'