Intro (8 bars — rolling toms, double-kick pulse, muted chug enters, violin wails):

(Drums: rolling thunder → build)

Oooh — the floor shakes. Listen.

Verse 1 (taut, accusatory, guitar palm-muted):

You hand out pebbles, call them “just a slip,”

A tiny white lie on the tip of your lip.

But you don’t stop there — oh no, you escalate,

You paint whole worlds where you never showed up at the gate.

You cast yourself as hero with a halo drawn,

Turn the truth to fiction from dusk to dawn.

Kids of your stories wear your stitched-up crown,

While real people stand in the rubble on the ground.

Pre-Chorus (build — tom accents, bass rising):

A whisper grows, then a roar — a tale that never ends,

You write the lies like chapters and call your lies “friends.”

When asked for answers, you pen a scene instead —

You give us novels where the facts once bled.

Chorus (huge, chantable hook — gang vocals):

You don’t tell a white lie — you write a whole damn novel!

Turn the quiet truth into a thunderclap of trouble.

Dragons, kings, and alibis in the margins of your mind —

You don’t tell a white lie — you rewrite all of time!

(Repeat hook, gang-shout finish)

Verse 2 (heavier guitars, drums push harder):

You summon lovers who never left their rooms,

Craft a chorus line of friends who hum your tunes.

You sign the credits where you never played a part,

Script the apologies with a counterfeit heart.

You narrate disasters with you as the savior,

Call it “memory” but it’s manufactured behavior.

We try to talk facts — you edit them to gold,

Your fiction’s on fire, but the truth’s left cold.

Pre-Chorus (urgent, staccato):

Pages stack like bodies, every lie a different name,

You’re Pulitzer-ready for the way you dodge the blame.

When evidence knocks, you roll the credits, fade to black —

You’re the author of escape, and you never look back.

Chorus (bigger — female harmony lift on second line):

You don’t tell a white lie — you write a whole damn novel!

Fill the blanks with monsters, cast yourself impeccable.

Make-believe scaffolding where the trust used to stand —

You don’t tell a white lie — you bankrupt the land!

(Repeat — crowd joins, clap on beats 2 & 4)

Bridge (breakdown — massive toms, minimal guitar, spoken-sung then explode):

(Spoken over toms)

Little lies are pebbles. Yours — a mountain you build to hide.

You crown yourself king of a kingdom forged from pride.

(Explode back in — full band)

We won’t read your epilogues that blur the lines with gold,

We’ll tear out the pages, burn the scripts you sold!

Guitar Solo (shredding over chorus progression — violin doubles a soaring line):

Final Chorus (key lift, stadium-sized, all voices):

You don’t tell a white lie — you write a whole damn novel!

Turn the quiet truth into a thunderclap of trouble.

Dragons, kings, and alibis in the margins of your mind —

You don’t tell a white lie — you rewrite all of time!

(Repeat, louder — gang-shouts: “NOVEL LIES!” — finish with a final thunder roll)

Outro (4 bars — drums crash like distant thunder, single violin cry, whispered):

Write your novels, turn the pages — we’ll keep the lights on for the truth.