Since the original production many performers have included the song as part of their concert performances, often rewriting it to reflect their own careers, including Barbra Streisand, Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis Jr. "I'm Still Here" was written during the out of town tryout for Follies in Boston, when Sondheim decided that another song ("Can That Boy Foxtrot") was not working.
The next verses describe surviving the excesses of show business success, including alcoholism, drug addiction and rehabilitation, as well as going through the Hollywood Blacklist.
This mixture is expressed in the emotional impact of the music itself, which gradually begins to swell as the song progresses from what starts as a nightclub lounge-act performance into a brassy big-band cabaret style finish.
[7] Elaine Stritch told Stephen Sondheim that an actress has only earned the right to perform the song once they reach 80.
She expressed her frustration that the many women who perform the song in their forties, fifties, and even sixties, lack the life experience necessary, demanding to know "where have they been?
The character Frederica Norman, played by Patti LuPone, sang the song in Pose, season 2, episode 6.
The character Doris Mann, played by Shirley MacLaine, sang the song in Postcards from the Edge.
At the request of director Mike Nichols, Stephen Sondheim wrote special lyrics for MacLaine to sing in the film.
The character Lillian Bennett, played by Carol Burnett, sang the song in Touched by an Angel season 4, episode 10: "The Comeback".