Since Cliff wrote the lyrics, it is incorrect to say that those were written as a tribute to him. The song on a whole, yes, but if you just mean the lyrics, it seems to be about lying (duh) and how everytime a man lies, he destroys a part of the world; eg- his life. Each lie defiles and corrupts our lives just a little bit more. He's sick and tired of these "pale deaths," in other words, they are not very noticeable and easy overlooked, and people lie even more to erase the previous lies, and so begins a vicious circle that slowly kill our senses of well-being and sanity.
(I used those lyrics as a quotations to analyze in an English paper)