As Lana Del Rey continues to release anything but her much talked-about tenth album, Stove (and now, its companion, Spyda), she instead keeps adding to her features oeuvre with a new single from Zach Bryan called “Lies.” And, since Del Rey has been cultivating her association with “country”—or at least neo-country/country-adjacent fare—for a while, the decision to collaborate with him seems strategic. Even if somewhat ill-advised considering Bryan’s fraught history in terms of his treatment of a certain ex: Brianna LaPaglia. The latter famously accusing him of emotional abuse and the offer of being paid twelve million dollars to sign an NDA after their breakup (which Bryan announced on his Instagram Story without first telling LaPaglia they were breaking up—a maneuver that makes Berger breaking up with Carrie on a Post-It note he leaves in her apartment after fleeing into the night seem kind in comparison).
This, along with rumors of Bryan knowingly spreading sexually transmitted infections amidst additional rumors of infidelity, haven’t exactly made him the poster boy for “likeability” (especially by women). And both “speculations” were acknowledged in a diss track called “Smallest Man,” released by LaPaglia’s BFF podcast co-hosts, Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards in 2024 (though Bryan’s and Richards’ shared label, Warner Music Group, had the song scrubbed from most platforms).
Incidentally, “Smallest Man” is also built into the title of a Taylor Swift song from The Tortured Poets Department, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” (about none other than Matty Healy)—and, in fact, Portnoy and Richards do use the term, “Smallest man who ever lived” in their song. Which brings one to not only the similarities between “Lies” and Swift’s “Exile” featuring Bon Iver, but also to the connection between Bryan and Swift, which is that he randomly decided to tweet, “eagles > chiefs / Kanye > Taylor / who’s with me.” This being yet another controversial moment for him in 2024, since very few people ever 1) dare to openly support Ye in this climate and 2) dare to publicly “go against” Swift in any way, shape or form (which now also includes saying the Philadelphia Eagles are better than the Kansas City Chiefs). To boot, it adds fuel to the fire of the “of late” assumption that Del Rey has cooled on her affections for Swift, which reached a pinnacle with their 2022 collaboration, “Snow on the Beach” (from Swift’s Midnights). And yes, maybe Swift dragging Del Rey up onstage during the 2024 Grammys after the former beat out the latter for Album of the Year was the beginning of that cooling. Whatever the case, Del Rey collaborating with Bryan is nothing if not pointed (or, who knows, maybe her down-home husband is just a fan [he was, after all, shown in the studio with them] or Del Rey warmed to Bryan thanks to his cover of “Video Games”). Complete with a sound that, tonally, mimics the “heart-wrenching” nature of “Exile,” awash in its own dramatic “pianoscape” and baleful harmonization.
Except, in contrast to “Exile,” “Lies” offers a more misleadingly “hopeful” (even if slightly more emotionally unhealthy) slant to a story of two people who clearly know they aren’t good for one another. Or at least that “this thing” between them isn’t going to last. And yes, there’s a direct reference to Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 hit, “Little Lies,” when Bryan sings, “Tell me your lies, babe, your sweet little lies.” Layering on the word “sweet” a bit too thick when, in the next line, he adds, “Fill my heart with sweetness.” As if anything about being lied to is “sweet.” Except, of course, when the truth is too painful to bear (so often the case in matters of l’amour). And since both would prefer to live in the moment of things being “good”—“fairy tale-esque” even—in their relationship, “The truth means nothing when you look this way.” A line that then begs the Del Rey question, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”
As for Swift and Bon Iver, they’ll both freely admit, “You’re not my homeland anymore/So what am I defending now?/You were my town/Now I’m in exile seeing you out.” In other words, no amount of “sweet little lies” can permit them to keep up the charade. Nonetheless, with a melancholy piano and strings arrangement to open “Lies,” Bryan and Del Rey set the sonic stage for something of an “Exile 2.0.” However, other comparisons have been made as well. Indeed, as has been pointed out by Walden Green of Pitchfork, there is a kind of Hozier sound to it (along with a pinch of another peak early 2010s band, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros), which is why, as it is said in the same review, many listeners might feel as if they’re being transported back to the “fluorescent LEDs of an H&M dressing room circa 2013, where ‘Take Me to Church’ is playing back to back with [Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’] ‘Same Love’ and Rihanna’s ‘Stay.’” Only it isn’t the latter Rihanna song that “Lies” reminds one of, so much as “Love the Way You Lie,” the 2010 Eminem single she’s featured on, during which, you guessed it, a fundamentally toxic relationship is explored. And yes, it’s also a relationship that neither party can seem to leave. Addicted to the lie of the relationship being too “good” “at its core” to leave. Or worse still, not caring how bad it is because: “I like the way it hurts.”
In truth, the Rihanna part of the chorus during which she sings, “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/Well, that’s alright because I like the way it hurts” is very much rooted in The Crystals’ infamous lyric (and song title), “He hit me and it felt like a kiss.” A line, fittingly, that Del Rey herself incorporated into her 2014 track, “Ultraviolence.” Specifically, when she “glamorizes abuse” (her phrase from that 2020 “open letter”) via the lyrics, “I can hear sirens, sirens/He hit me and it felt like a kiss.”
That philosophy also seems to underpin “Lies” when Del Rey offers arguably the only “poignant” line of the single, “Tell me everything that you ever said/Was just another excuse for what you meant instead.” Something one can imagine Rihanna also begging of Eminem, were she given slightly more in-depth lyrics to work with. Instead, Eminem gets all the glory as he puts listeners into the mind of an abuser by declaring, “All I know is I love you too much to walk away now” and “I’m tired of the games, I just want her back, I know I’m a liar.”
As is Bryan. That is, per the “Smallest Man” account of his character, during which Portnoy and Richards note triumphantly, “Knew you was a liar.” So, too, apparently, does Del Rey. Except she doesn’t care. Because, in this context, she’s one as well. Warning, ironically, “I’ll let you believe I’ll never leave you without warning.” Jeremy Dufrene, take heed (and Samantha Leonard, too).
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