Other instrumentation for the song includes cello, which was played by a live orchestra. As the song moves towards the chorus, the piano sounds stop and the cello plays with Madonna belting out the lyrics: "Deep in my heart, I'm concealing, Things that I'm longing to say, Scared to confess what I'm feeling, Frightened you'll slip away", when the piano and the orchestra sounds come back again. It proceeds in the same way and gradually fades out. "You Must Love Me" is set in common time, with a moderate tempo of 92 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of B major, with Madonna's vocals spanning from G3 to B4. The song has a basic sequence of B–E/B–F/B–B in the beginning and changes to B–F when Madonna sings the opening verse "Where do we go from here?".