Album: Quick Step and Side Kick (1982)
Charted: 67 30
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Songfacts®:

  • When the core Thompson Twins members Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway wrote this song, they didn't assign heavy social commentary to it. "We were just trying to be wacky and a little bit crazy and come up with an idea that we could be irreverent about," Bailey said in our interview.

    Over time, however, the song took on new meanings, and in 2014 when Bailey performed the group's hits for the first time since 1987, it opened up to him in a whole new way. "I thought, What are we talking about with this 'Lies' business?," he said. "I realized that it was not only the lies that we tell each other in relationships, but it specifically mentions the media and the way that we're controlled by a view of the world which is presented us through the press and TV and radio and all the other forms of media, and now the Internet."
  • The song has an extremely simplistic chorus:

    Lies, lies, lies, yeah (x3)

    It's very effective, however, since it's so easy to remember and quickly imprints in your brain. There is a meaning behind it as well: the chorus is meant to mimic a taunting schoolyard chant.
  • This was the first Thompson Twins single released in the 3-piece lineup of the band. They had seven members when they released their previous album, but pared down to just Bailey, Currie and Leeway for Quick Step and Side Kick (released in the US as Side Kicks).

    The song was the group's first Top 40 hit in America, and their first to do better in the States than in their native UK.
  • The song spent two weeks at #1 on the American Dance chart in January 1983, becoming the Thompson Twins second chart-topper on that tally following "In the Name of Love."

Comments: 2

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn May 7, 1983, the Thompson Twins performed "Lies" on the Dick Clark ABC-TV Saturday-afternoon program, 'American Bandstand'...
    At the time the song was at #98 on Billboard's Top 100 chart, six weeks earlier it had peaked at #30 {for 3 weeks} and it spent a total of sixteen weeks on the Top 100...
    And on Janaury 2nd, 1983 it reached #1 {for 2 weeks} on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs chart...
    On the same 'Bandstand' show they also performed "Love On Your Side", at the time it was at #72 on Top 100 chart, four weeks later it would peak at #45 {for 1 week} and it stayed on the chart for nine weeks...
    Between 1982 and 1989 the English trio had eleven records on the Top 100 chart, three* made the Top 10, "Hold Me Now" {#3 for 2 weeks in 1984}, "Lay Your Hands On Me" {#6 for 2 weeks in 1985}, and "King For A Day" {#8 for 1 week in 1986}...
    * They just missed having a fourth Top 10 record when "Doctor! Doctor!" peaked at #11 {for 1 week} in 1984.
  • Seventhmist from 7th HeavenThe "Asian" and "Egyptian" riffs in this song always cracked me up.
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