Songfacts®:

• This is a darker and more heavily produced song than most of the other tunes in Bareilles' oeuvre. The singer told American Songwriter magazine why she created this bleak number: "'Lie To Me' was actually mostly crafted at home with garage band loops that I put together, and Ben (Folds, producer) added that incredible string arrangement. I love that song. I'm really proud of it. It felt like it was very different for me and sort of darker than my other records have sounded, but I feel ready to share more shades of my color.
  
  I actually write kind of mean lyrics, but usually wrapped up in a sunny song," she added. "For a while I was having fun with that juxtaposition, but 'Lie To Me' is a bit more direct. It sounds like what it means. It's experimentation, finding new ways to express what I was trying to say. I'm excited to have people see different sides of my musical personality, so that one was fun."
• American Songwriter asked Bareilles how much this song was inspired by personal experiences. She replied: "I'm a very autobiographical writer, so when people upset me or piss me off, they're going to end up in a song somewhere. But I definitely—I don't want to say exaggerate, because that makes it sound like it's not true—but you can extrapolate a lot from a small incident. No one betrayed me to the depths of my being. That's not where that song came from. But I think if you take a particular incident that's highly emotionally charged, you can draw it out into something that's even bigger than it is through a song. I think it's an effective way to write."