Instrumentally, "Beauty and the Beast" features several chord changes, woodwinds, and violins. GamesRadar observed that "Beauty and the Beast" includes a key change during which "the music swells, and then the orchestra subsides to leave just trembling violins". Describing the ballad as "soaring", "TV Guide" compared "Beauty and the Beast" to "Shall We Dance?" from the musical "The King and I". R.L. Shaffer of IGN identified "Beauty and the Beast" as a "tear-jerking poetic ballad". "Film Genre 2000: New Critical Essays" author Wheeler W. Dixon believes that the song's lyrics are about the couple's "implicit promise of regeneration through love". 29 lines in length, all of which are exactly five syllables, "Beauty and the Beast" is a love song about a couple's transformation from friends into "something more". The film's theme song, its lyrics "capture the essence of the film" by describing the relationship between "Beauty and the Beast"'s two main characters, specifically citing ways in which the two have changed each other for the better and finally learned to accept their differences and mistakes. According to Jake Cole of Not Just Movies, the first stanza begins "in earnest, and the subtlety of it has the ironic effect of being overpowering". Beginning with Lansbury singing the lyrics "Tale as old as time, true as it can be," JoBlo.com wrote that the song "offers a sure sign of romance between the Beauty and her Beast". Meanwhile, Songfacts believes that "The message of the song is that a couple can be 'as old as time' no matter how different they are". According to Chris Lucas of Moviepilot, Ashman's lyrics describe the couple's "hesitation and surprise at falling in love unexpectedly," while author Thomas S. Hischak wrote in "The Disney Song Encyclopedia" that the song is "about how two tentative hearts are united in love". Featuring the line "Barely even friends, then somebody bends, unexpectedly," Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" believes that the ballad "makes the case for all lovers to look past their partners' faults and into their hearts," while Cole wrote, "Ashman goes for the truth ... we don't know we're in love until we spend time with someone and unforced adjustments make the pieces fall into place".