Stephen Sondheim

"What Can You Lose?" is a quarrel that the poet has with himself.

What can you lose?

Only the blues.

Why keep concealing everything you're feeling?

Say it to her--what can you lose?

The speaker is miserable because he has not declared his love. But, because the writer is Sondheim, there isn't any easy solution. The song pivots:

Maybe it shows.

She's had clues, which she chose to ignore.

Maybe, though, she knows--

And just wants to go on as before.

(As a friend, nothing more.)

So she closes the door.

In other words, a declaration would just be a source of embarrassment. The beloved "doesn't want to hear it."

Once the words are spoken--

Something may be broken...

Leave it alone.

Hold it all in.

Better a bone--

Don't even begin.

With so much to win--

There's too much to lose.

An ambivalent semi-courtship is "just a bone"--just the scraps from a chicken dinner. But the scraps are better than an empty plate.

The last sentence revisits the first. "What can you lose?"--a cliched thought--is really a foolish question. The song has a "call-and-response" structure--very satisfying, even if you aren't fully aware of it as you're listening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=519p-Ei6vHY

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