A Little Lie

"A Little Lie" is the ninth track on Hourglass.

Lyrics

Dave's Take

"['A Little Lie']...reflects a lot on the past...like pretending and then confessing to that- pretending to be something that I'm not and then getting stuck there, but actually kind of confessing to it cathartically removed it from my shoulders, somehow. But also musically, I wanted it to be this big kind of bombastic sort of idea that then got really small in the verses...that's what the song's about. It kind of reflects on the lies...like I'm tired of listening to politicians and religious leaders and whatever tell us how it's supposed to be or what it is we're supposed to be doing or believing in. It's almost like the power that they have over us is fear. I refuse to live there."¹

My Take

The instrumentation is pretty minimal in this song, save for a slow drum beat and a simple yet memorable electric guitar riff to give it some color and identity. But this is where the dexterity of Dave's vocals get to shine. He goes from soft and meek in the verses to practically a bellow in the chorus. Speaking of the chorus, it appears that from the handwritten lyrics for this song in the CD booklet, it had gone through at least a few iterations before settling on what it is on the album. I see a lot of crossed-out lines; for example, "calm down people" was once "come on people" ("Where's the Revolution" vibes, anyone?) and "it's just a little lie" looks like it used to be, "I'm just a little high," which is actually really funny; he should've kept that! Anyway, the lyrics also seem to ring of the same self-deprecating themes and feelings of inadequacy as Depeche Mode's "Hole to Feed," too, which came out just a little later and that Dave also wrote.

Music Video

There is no music video for this song.

References

1. "Dave Gahan Hourglass Interview + Radio IDs", EMI Music, Greece (September 13, 2007)