If Music Be the Food of Love

Song Meaning

This piece opens with a bold declaration: music is the sustenance of love, and the speaker craves it in overwhelming doses. The desire is so intense that it aims to satiate the appetite for love until it becomes sick and fades away. This paradoxical hunger suggests a speaker wrestling with an insatiable longing, using music as both a cure and a potential poison. The central tension lies in the fleeting nature of pleasure and desire. The speaker finds a particular musical phrase intoxicating, comparing its arrival to a delicate scent from violets. Yet, this intense sweetness quickly diminishes, leaving the speaker to lament, "'Tis not so sweet now as it was before." This rapid decay highlights the ephemeral quality of intense emotion and sensory experience. The lyrics brilliantly capture the mercurial nature of "fancy" or imagination. The speaker describes love's spirit as vast as the sea, yet susceptible to rapid devaluation. "So full of shapes is fancy / That it alone is high fantastical" points to a mind constantly creating and discarding desires, making even the most potent feelings subject to immediate obsolescence. The repetition of "If music be the food of love, play on" acts as a desperate, almost incantatory plea against this inevitable decline. Ultimately, the effectiveness of these lyrics stems from their vivid portrayal of a mind overwhelmed by its own capacity for feeling. The speaker’s desire to “surfeit” and “die” the appetite, coupled with the rapid fading of musical pleasure, creates a poignant portrait of yearning. It’s a sophisticated exploration of how the intensity of our own desires can lead to their own undoing.