is or are?

[TutorT]

I'm writing a song and I want to include this line -

"A few dollars is hardly any, a few lies are way too many".

This reads naturally to me as I'm inferring the word money ie - "A few dollars is hardly any (money), a few lies are way too many".

Because the listener or reader can't know I'm inferring money must the sentence be the following to be grammatically correct?
"A few dollars are hardly any, a few lies are way too many".

thanks :)

[harvest]

according to the source I've ever read if 'few' comes as subject, so it must be plural.
a few is used for countable noun.
thanks