Songfacts®:

• "Pretend" is a guitar-led upbeat track that weaves a tale of love's dissolution. Colbie Caillat explores the realm of missed opportunities and unrealized romance as she looks back on a relationship with fondness. The song is tinted with both nostalgia and remorse, prompting thoughts of alternative paths that might have unfolded.
  
  "I wrote 'Pretend' when I was reminiscing the good parts of my last relationship and wanting to pretend we were back together so I could re-live and feel those good times we shared again," Caillat said of the song.
• Caillat wrote "Pretend" for her seventh solo album, Along The Way. It's her first record since breaking up with her fiancée, singer Justin Young, in 2020. "Although the album is full of breakup songs, I felt it was important to share the optimism I still feel about the future and the respect I have for what I've experienced in the past," Caillat said of "Pretend."
• Caillat started "Pretend" in her bedroom, where she wrote the first half of the chorus. Then she called songwriters Liz Rose and AJ Pruis and asked them to help her complete the song.
• Caillat released "Pretend" as the second single from Along The Way on June 9, 2023. Rose and Pruis also helped her write the album's lead single, "Worth It."
• "Pretend" incorporates some traditional country sounds, such as a fiddle and banjo. This is not surprising, as Along the Way is Caillat's first solo country album. She recorded it in Nashville with producer Jamie Kenney.
  
  Caillat has flirted with country music in the past, releasing an EP with her Little Big Town-type country soft-pop quartet, Gone West. She made her solo Grand Ole Opry debut on May 20, 2023.
• Kenney also played the piano, B3 organ, synthesizer and sang backing vocals (with Caillat). The other musicians are:
  
  Kris Donegan: electric guitar, acoustic guitar
  Adam Lester: acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar
  Craig Young: bass guitar
  Justin Schipper: steel guitar, dobro
  Jenee Fleenor: fiddle
  Paul Mabury: drums, percussion