Songfacts®:

• "Casual" is a rock ballad that explores the complexities of a casual relationship. Chappell Roan plunges into the emotional turmoil experienced when one person is deeply invested in a connection while the other stays detached.
  
  Speaking with WECB-FM, Roan noted that the story is based off of a real-life experience:
  
  "The whole song came from like, I heard from their friend that they were saying it was casual, when I didn't think it was. I did not think it was, but apparently it was, so. And to me I was like, how could this be? How could this be casual?"
• Roan sings of longing and frustration as she grapples with the contradiction between her strong feelings and her partner's ambivalence.
  
  "I wrote this song because I am legitimately so tired of love turning into situationships," Roan explained on TikTok. "And I know my friends are so tired about hearing about the s--t show of my love life."
• Roan crafted the song with Olivia Rodrigo's songwriting partner Dan Nigro and feminist pop singer-songwriter Morgan St. Jean. Roan shares another connection with Rodrigo: She was an opening act on the pop star's Sour and Guts tours.
• Dan Nigro teamed up with his frequent collaborator Ryan Linvill to produce the track. They crafted a dreamy soundscape that mirrors the song's bittersweet exploration of casual relationships.
• Directed by Hadley Hillel, the music video for "Casual" takes a visual approach to the song's themes. It symbolizes Roan's dreams of a serious romance when the reality may be far from that. So where did the idea of using a siren to characterize a noncommittal relationship come from?
  
  "It was like, 'How can we bring in an unexpected element here to really embody the sort of danger and intrigue of a casual relationship and how it can feel so good but be so empty and dark underneath all that?'" Hillel explained to The Daily Texan. "We worked from (the idea of a) siren and then built the character and the story around the idea that (Roan) was being lured into (something) that was not quite what it looked like on the surface."
• "'Casual" became a viral TikTok hit in September 2024, thanks to a trend where creators shared photos and videos of "casual things we did before we started dating."
• "Casual" plays during a scene in the 2025 movie Novocaine when the character Sherry is at her art show and bumps into Nathan.