The song is ended,
But the melody lingers on.

These lines are the refrain of Irving Berlin’s popular song “The Song Is Ended (But the Melody Lingers On),” introduced in 1927. Written for the Broadway revue Ziegfeld Follies of 1927, the number quickly became a standard, recorded by major singers and bands of the late 1920s and after. Berlin’s lyric uses the end of a performance as a metaphor for the end of a romance or a chapter of life: the event is over, but its emotional residue persists. The song’s wide circulation in sheet music, radio, and recordings helped the couplet take on an afterlife as a standalone quotation about memory and lingering feeling.

On its surface, the couplet contrasts a finite act (“the song”) with an enduring aftereffect (“the melody”). As metaphor, it suggests that endings are rarely absolute: experiences conclude, relationships break, and moments pass, yet their impressions continue to shape us. Berlin’s phrasing is simple and musical, turning the idea of memory into something audible and involuntary—like a tune you can’t quite stop hearing. The line’s durability as a quotation comes from its emotional versatility: it can elegize love, commemorate a person, or describe nostalgia for any vanished time while affirming that what mattered still resonates.

“The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.”