Eurhythmics – "Would I Lie to You?" (1985)

Would I lie to you, honey?

Now would I say something that wasn’t true?

As I told you in the last 2 or 3 lines, I’m suddenly reading MUCH less than I once did.

I’ve been keeping track of all the books I’ve read since I graduated from law school in 1977.   For example, I read 64 books in 2000 – including ten just in August.

My journal shows that I set a personal record by reading 90 books in 2009:

I obviously didn’t have much else going on in 2009.

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I've managed to finish only four books so far in 2023 – a paltry number indeed:

I’m about to finish my fifth book of the year.  But even if I were to add it to my list, reading five books in five-plus months is nothing to write home about.  (Back in the day, five books in a month was my norm.)

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Reading’s not the only thing that I’m doing less of since 2 or 3 lines moved to its new world headquarters at the beginning of 2023.

I gave birth to my wildly popular little blog in late 2009, but really hit my blogging stride in 2011 – I cranked out 159 2 or 3 lines posts that year.  I followed that up by publishing between 154 and 177 posts in each of the next seven years.  

My annual output fell somewhat after I retired from my law firm because I made a conscious decision to post twice a week instead of thrice.  I was hoping that a reduction in quantity would lead to an increase in quality.  But I don’t think that strategy really worked: the quality of 2 or 3 lines has been deteriorating for years, and going from three posts a week to two slowed that rate of deterioration only slightly.

Counting this one, I’ve written only 40 posts in the first five months of 2023 – which means that unless I get off my ass and start working a little harder, my annual production is going to fall to fewer than 100 posts for the first time ever.

Maybe that’s just as well – most of my 2023 posts are pretty forgettable.

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I talked about why my reading had fallen so far off in the previous 2 or 3 lines.  But I didn’t tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in the post.  

I used to be almost recklessly honest in 2 or 3 lines.  But I’m holding more back these days.  

What's behind my self-censorship?  A lot of the people who matter the most to me know that I write 2 or 3 lines.  Because they are such an important part of my life, I'm tempted to write about them – if I don't, that means a large part of my life is missing from my blog.  

But I have to be very careful when I do that.  It’s bad enough when I exaggerate about those people for comic effect –  not surprisingly, they sometimes resent being caricatured in a post.

But it’s even worse when I write the truth about them.  That’s the really unforgivable sin. 

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I featured “Would You Lie to Me” – which was a big hit for the Eurythmics in 1985 – in the fifth 2 or 3 lines post I wrote back in 2009.  (I’ve written almost two thousand more since publishing that one.)

I began that 2009 post with two lines from the song:

Would I lie to you, honey?

Now would I say something that wasn’t true?

I then wrote the following answer to the question posed in that song lyric:

Oh, please.  OF COURSE I would lie to you!  And you’d lie to me or anyone else if you had a good reason to do so – and if you thought you could get away with it.

Just about everyone lies.  

Men lie.  Women lie.  Children lie.

I don’t think dogs lie, but cats certainly do. 

There’s really no need to change a word of that, is there?

Click here to watch the official music video for “Would I Lie to You?”

Click here to order the record from Amazon.