In his song “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” songwriter Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf explicitly name several things the singer will never do.
Lie to you
Forget the way you feel right now
Forgive myself if we don't go all the way tonight
Do it better than I do it with you
Stop dreaming of you every night of my life
See that it's time to move on
Be screwing around
Meat Loaf explained in interviews that because the line “I’d do anything for love” is repeated several times right before the final refrain, listeners simply forget the specific preceding line (“I’ll never stop dreaming of you”) that defines “that”.
Funny, but the song actually says what it is. 1st verse, 4th line - he will never lie to her.
It’s more complicated:
Ironically, that’s almost certainly a lie itself.