The song is about the vulnerability felt when you come across an ex-partner at a mutual friends party....where you feel everybody knows there is still something there.....can't pretend otherwise...but dare you make a fool of yourself...how you observe the everyday things that used to mean so much...
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Song Review from Musicians Together Magazine:
I’ve had Warren Newton’s beautiful MT album contribution ‘Can’t Pretend’ washing over me for the last 24 hours and it’s been an enjoyable experience. It would probably be unfair to Warren to call him an Australian John Lennon but he sure conjures up that quirkier Beatle’s spirit in both his song-writing and his voice; plus he’s a self-confessed fan of ‘A Day in the Life’.

This song is about bumping into an ex-Girlfriend or, as Warren puts it: “I was trying to catch that emotion of catching up with an Ex…Ugh…..when she walks up and shakes my frigging hand!!”

And this Antipodean charm kicks off this song right from the beginning when all the wavering back-wash of keyboards and strings and sounds has me wondering if he’s thrown a didgeridoo into the mix…

But it’s when the gorgeous chorus of this tune happens that all the piss-taking gets parked and I realise that I’ve got something a little special on my hands here.
He conjures up this moment in time so effortlessly that you can almost picture it in your mind.

“Can’t pretend that you’re someone I just met an hour ago
Can’t pretend I don’t love you cause
Everybody knows I do.”

What I love about Warren is how he sings with his emotion and uses his own accent unashamedly. He makes you feel the thing cause he’s feeling it; and tinges of what he’s doing at times make me think about John Denver who had that same honesty and plaintiveness.

But there’s more to Warren than his singing – and when his electric guitar kicks in on the bridge on top of the acoustic, his love of sonic layers come to the fore. But even though there’s an undoubted intricacy and skill to his song-writing and abilities as an artist there’s always an appealing simplicity in his presentation.

Warren describes the song self-deprecatingly as “loose at times” but it’s been getting plenty of radio airplay down-under which it deserves. And with talk of a series of gigs and maybe an album to follow there’s everything to look forward to. Liam Oragh.
musicianstogether.com/magazine