Lie to Me (feat. Julia Michaels)

“Lie to Me” is the third track on 5 Seconds of Summer’s third album "Youngblood". It was first played at their promotional “5SOS3 Tour” in Stockholm, Sweden. The music video for “Lie to Me” was released on January 18, 2019 and their acoustic version was released on February 1, 2019. On December 21, 2018, they released a remix of the song featuring Julia Michaels.

From their Cocktail Chats (episode 2):

Ashton: “Lie to Me” is about, it hurts when you’re in a romantic situation and the other person is in it for reasons that you aren’t. When your love doesn’t line up.

“Lie to Me” lyrically is totally inspired from heartbreak but attempting to move on.
Sonically the song came about in a really incredible way.

I always wanted a song that had a Police “Every Breath You Take” type guitar mixed in with a groove from a modern, urban song. So we’re writing this rift to something that went skats.

Michael: Kinda like somber lyrics with more like, upbeat tone to the entire song and the like major chord structure.

Luke: The melancholy kind of chords and the “lie, lie, lie, lie.” I think, yeah, just relating it back to my own life.

There was a point of my life I’d play “Lie to Me” about 400 times a day

Calum: “Lie to Me” is a special song to me because of, one, the writing process, and two, the recording process.

“Lie to Me” was actually written the day after we wrote “Youngblood.”

And I remember Ashton and Andrew were sitting on the couch and they had the, “lie, lie, lie, lie” and we’re all like, “Alright, let’s come back in tomorrow and we’ll finish the idea.” And that’s how we got “Lie to Me.”

From their On The Record Apple Music Documentary:

Luke: Breakthrough songs like “Lie to Me” took so long to get to. “Lie to Me” is so unique, and I think that song lyrically and musically, how clever it is, with like mixing the groove with melancholy lyrically with the melody.

Ashton: I feel like vocally it’s been the first time we’ve been able to get our vocals that have been inspired by artists like the Beach Boys and the Beatles; that old-school style harmony which has obviously always been in people’s hearts but they haven’t known how to relay it in modern pop. I feel elated that we get to give that kind of vocal presentation.