To provide the most Genius-style explanation of the song possible, “Don’t Lie” is a song about not lying. Truthtelling, realkeeping, you could say “Don’t Lie” is also a double entendre, like “Don’t die” (i.e. lie in the ground). It is about not wanting a new lover to betray you like the last one, or not wanting God to lie to you about existing after you’ve struggled to find the spirit elsewhere.

There is a significant amount of introspection on their other songs on this album about plant growth and relationship death. While this lyric may not be as overtly and self-consciously intellectual as their earlier work, it is thematically in line with the earlier songs, especially those that reference the Evelyn Waugh novel Brideshead Revisited (“contra mundum” on “California English,” “Arrows” from their demo album.)

The music critic Matthew Perpetua, who considers this album the logical endpoint of #YOLO 2k12, also argues that it’s not exactly about death:

“I want to know, does it bother you? / the low click of a ticking clock.” Yes, yes it does. Nearly every song on Modern Vampires of the City reckons with the inevitability of time running out, and to be honest with you, it really gets under my skin. Ezra Koenig mentions death a lot, but in some ways, it’s hyperbolic – it’s not about death, it’s about the fear of adulthood, and surrendering the possibilities of youth. Koenig’s characters sense doors closing behind them at every turn, and feel the weight of decisions they might have not considered to be particularly important even just a few years ago. “Don’t Lie” is a love song, really, but the urgency of the romantic feeling is amped up by morbidity – “there’s a headstone right in front of you, and everyone I know.” The feelings are strong, but the character is caught up in the anxious rush to find more experiences, and the fear that making a commitment is a death sentence for their youth.

In their Reddit AMA, they said that “Don’t Lie” was their favorite song.