Press Release: Inside ‘Can We Just Pretend?’ - Bella Galasso’s Most moving Song Yet
Some heartbreak doesn’t arrive in chaos. It settles quietly — in the pauses between words, in late-night thoughts, in the slow realization that something once safe now feels uncertain. That fragile emotional space is exactly where Bella Galasso plants herself on her new single, Can We Just Pretend?, out March 5.
A Song About Emotional Limbo
Can We Just Pretend? lives in the fragile space between longing and denial — where hope and self-doubt coexist, and clarity feels just out of reach. From the opening line, “Fill in the gaps, I’m hollow / I’m breathing in, not breathing out,” Bella sets the tone: emotionally depleted, suspended in uncertainty, searching for something solid to hold onto.
Throughout the song, imagery of emotional erosion repeats. “Feelings seep through like water / In between my hands,” becomes a haunting refrain — a metaphor for love slipping away no matter how tightly you try to hold it. Each chorus deepens the sense of emotional exhaustion, culminating in the devastating line: “Losing myself / But darling, can we just pretend?”
It’s a plea rooted in vulnerability — the desire to freeze time, to stay in a version of love that feels safer than reality. Rather than dramatizing heartbreak, the song captures something far more intimate: emotional limbo, where pretending becomes a form of survival.
What makes Can We Just Pretend? so affecting is its restraint. The production is soft, minimal, and atmospheric, allowing every lyric, breath, and melodic shift to land with intention. There’s no explosive climax — only quiet unraveling.
This subtlety gives the track its depth. It doesn’t demand attention — it invites it.
Created Through Collaboration
Developed at Evergreen’s January songwriting camp, the song emerged from a creative environment focused on emotional honesty and storytelling restraint. Written during the second edition of Evergreen Music Company’s songwriting camp, the song was created by Gabriella Galasso (Bella Galasso), Gabriel Brault (Burgundy), Erika Spedding (Erika Michelle), and produced by Kamel Bushnaq (Polykrome). The session allowed vulnerability to guide the process rather than commercial expectation, and the result is an emotionally intimate record that captures the quiet tension of staying in a relationship that is privately unraveling.
Every creative decision — from lyric phrasing to specific sound design — serves the emotional truth of the song. The result is a record that feels timeless, intimate, and deeply human.
A Defining Moment for Bella
For Bella, Can We Just Pretend? represents a pivotal step forward in her artistic evolution. It reinforces her identity as a songwriter unafraid to sit with emotional complexity, uncertainty, and self-reflection — choosing honesty over resolution.
Fans of Phoebe Bridgers, Lizzy McAlpine, Gracie Abrams, and early Maggie Rogers will find familiar comfort in Bella’s understated delivery and poetic vulnerability. But more than comparisons, this release marks Bella’s growing confidence in her own voice — soft, restrained, and quietly powerful.
Out March 5
Can We Just Pretend? arrives March 5 across all streaming platforms, accompanied by a visual world that mirrors the song’s emotional stillness and introspection. Pre-save the upcoming single now.
Sometimes the most powerful songs don’t shout. They whisper — and in that quiet, Bella Galasso reminds us that pretending is often the hardest truth to face.
