sweet lies
by
Douglas Messerli
Brendan
Leahy and Steve Grand (composers), Brendan Leahy (director) Time / 2015
[5.20 minutes] [music video]
Two
years is a long time in the music business, and Steve Grand has moved a long
way, lamentably one might argue, from his 2013 recording hit, All-American
Boy in his 2015 single Time. The music and lyrics here seem as uncomfortably
hitched to narrative as the 2013 work seemed a natural.
This work is a vaguely country/western, but
arguably more urban-based tale (some of it filmed clearly in Chicago) of finding
deep love in the middle of nowhere (Lemont, Illinois) within only two hours
before the next train.
Unlike
the figures in David Lean’s tearjerker film Brief Encounter, Grand and
his lover (performed by Daniel Williams in the video) not only make the most of
the time before the next train arrives, but find what seems like true love,
moving in together and developing a close network of friends—even if the work
ends with Williams alone in bed while Grand sleeps on the couch, a framed
snapshot of the couple taken early in their whirlwind romance having been
broken in a fight—a bad sign for their future.
Grand has always been a master of winding
narrative into music, but here I’d argue, the narrative is superior to the song
itself, which we might describe as a song of denial, with a repeated chorus of “I
don’t wanna know / I don’t wanna know/ I don’t wanna know.”
VERSE
2
You
had me meet your friends
I
never loved you more than when
we
watched that game
back
at Andy's place
pretending
to give a damn
about
coaches and quarterbacks
with
your head in my lap
now
who could blame me for that
steel
eyes stealin' my heart
right
from the start
PRE-CHORUS
2
And
you were keepin me warm through those nights
where
I left my life to the cold outside
you
left your light on
oh
you let me shine on
CHORUS
2
When
time was on our side
You
and I suspended in that warm street light
and
if you ever figure out this life
keep
tellin' me those sweet, sweet lies
cause
I don't wanna know
I
don't wanna know
I
don't wanna know
In his warm cocoon of lies and denial, we
can imagine Grand will return to his lover’s bed. Yet somehow that possibility
seems far less poignant than the young lonely boy rejected by his cowboy hero for
a woman in All-American Boy.
But perhaps I’m
being too harsh. The critic for Album Confessions, Luis Gonzalez wrote:
“Time
opens up with a soft piano intro, focusing all attention on Grand's seductively
sweet vocal performance as he reminisces on a past relationship before the
energy and instrumentals pick up pace for the soaring chorus. ‘When time was on
our side, you and I suspended in that warm street light, and if you ever figure
out this life, keep telling me those sweet, sweet lies, cuz I don't wanna know’
the artist sings with intense passion for his gender-neutral lover. Given
Grand's coming out story, the song could hold many meanings depending on the
listener.
Grand is a talented independent musician,
currently relying on no label for extra support. The 24-year-old is striving
for perfection on his upcoming album, and is clearly achieving it. Time
is a personal look into the artist's love life as a young adult. The song could
be peeking behind the covers of a love Grand could not see as false, or it
could be the fact he is the one leading his lover on. Either way, like most
stories, it's a love that eventually leads to unfortunate heartache.”
This song was released as a single along
with his cover song of Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets. And in the same
year as Time’s release, Grand took his LGBTQ activism further by
traveling to Europe as an Arts Envoy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs for the US State Department, his band promotion the cause in Austria;
and later in 2015 he performed at Europride in Riga, Latvia.
Los
Angeles, August 18, 2025
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2025).
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