I Lie To You Sometimes; The Song
Truth. Trust. Fear. Vulnerability. Those are a tough mix to work with. That’s what ‘I Lie To You Sometimes’ is about.
The song is like a kind of confession – a partial confession. It isn’t a perfect expression of vulnerability and trust – in fact, it lays a bit too much of the onus for relationship on the other. But our confessions are seldom whole, and I for one am not always fully fearless and open about expressing the times when I am not ‘fine’. And really, the lies this song is talking about are those sorts of lies – the ‘little’ lies about being okay when in actual fact okay-ness is not quite settled. It’s about not having important and open conversations, and just letting the comfortable status quo rule the day, and then in the long run paying the price of feeling misunderstood and alone.
By the end of the song, the ‘voice’ of the song is starting to reach out, although not fully taking ownership of fault in the stagnation of the relationship and moving to full emotional honesty and availability. There’s still a kind of self-protective emotional blame game involved.
In real life we aren’t perfect. A song doesn’t have to reflect perfection and resolution. If a person is alive, a person is in process – and a song should reflect that reality. I feel that we have a tendency in our time to rush to a kind of false resolution, to not allow a real emotional process to occur. I may, for example, know how I ‘should’ feel, and therefore try to claim that ideal state of being instead of allowing my emotions to really get worked out. Our general sense of being ‘busy’ and wanting to be ‘efficient’ may work into this trap as well.
The difficulty with rushing to a false emotional resolution is that the real process can get undermined and go unconscious, so that I might in some ways act out the emotions that I still feel but am denying. That can’t be healthy – there has to be some middle ground. In being committed to honest relationships, we give ourselves – and our significant others – the opportunity to really go through those internal processes, and honestly arrive at real resolutions in a more natural timeline.
Here are my lyrics;
I lie to you sometimes
try to hide the things inside
try to slide atop the tide
yeah, and take you for a ride
Don’t want you looking at my soul
You might see that I’m not whole
Might find ashes, might find coal
where you thought you would find gold
I lie to you sometimes
– no looking at my soul!
I lie to you sometimes
I lie to you sometimes
…sometimes
I lie to you
try to hide the things insdie
try to slide atop the tide
yeah, and take you for a ride
It seems easier this way
seems like everything’s okay
and we talk about the weather
’cause there’s nothing else to say
Don’t get sad, and don’t get close
’cause that’s what I hate the most
makes me uneasy and morose
makes me take a double dose
Makes me deal with the pain
makes me have to start again
– does that mean things will get better
or will sunshine turn to rain?
I lie to you sometimes
– no looking at my soul!
I lie to you sometimes
I lie to you sometimes
… you know
I lie to you
please don’t believe the words I say
because the greatest price I pay
is when you smile and walk away
I lie to you sometimes
Please don’t believe the words I say
because the greatest price I pay
… is when you smile and walk away
(The chorus here is supposed to be like an emotional pivot point, at each repetition leading to a direction of greater self-awareness and taking some more ownership for honesty and a healthy relationship, even with risk)
