Songfacts®:

• "I Don't Want To Go To Mars" is a space anthem that finds White Lies singer Charles Cave being taken away from Earth to live out a sanitized and mundane existence on a newly colonized Red Planet. He protests that he'd rather live out his days in the world he knows than in a sterile corporate-owned Mars colony.
• The song questions the space ambitions of such tech entrepreneurs as Elon Musk. "I think technology ought to improve quality of life," Cave told The Sun. "And I can't see how rebuilding Dubai on a barren planet is going to be much of a vibe for any discerning human being. But, maybe I'm wrong. It feels like they're condemning Earth to ruin and moving on to the next orb to trash."
• White Lies recorded "I Don't Want To Go To Mars" at Sleeper and Assault and Battery studios in west London, with long-term co-producer Ed Buller (Pulp, Suede).
• White Lies released "Mars" as the second single from As I Try Not to Fall Apart. The band wrote and recorded the album during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a fatalistic mood running through the record. "The last two years have caused us all to ruminate too much on disappointments and failings," said Cave. "But it's healthy to explore that through music."