Taylor Swift’s Toy Story 5 Single “I Knew It, I Knew You”: Stream

When it was revealed that Taylor Swift would be contributing a song to the soundtrack for Toy Story 5, one immediate question was what kind of song it would be: Toy Story’s musical legacy ranges from the relentlessly upbeat “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” to the heartbreak of Toy Story 2’s “When She Loved Me.” “I Knew It, I Knew You,” it turns out, is more in line with Randy Newman’s original anthem, though with slicker, warmer production courtesy of collaborator Jack Antonoff. “We wrote this with so much adoration for these characters that made us laugh and helped us learn lessons and think outside the backyard all throughout our childhoods,” Swift said on X.

“I Knew It, I Knew You” is packed with country twang — a return to Swift’s “country roots,” per the official press release, and drawing some immediate comparisons to the sound of her first self-titled album — as well as songs from Folklore and The Tortured Poets Department’s “The Bolter.” The steady bassline, right from the beginning, feels a little reminiscent of the 1981 Squeeze track “Tempted,” but certainly contributes to the song’s real earworm potential. This especially kicks in during the bridge, lyrics like “Oh, the rivers I cried when we said goodbye/ Wondering if I’d made it up in my mind” elevated by the accompanying key change.

The country influences certainly feel appropriate for a song told from the point of view of Jessie, the cowgirl voiced by Joan Cusack who’s been abandoned by at least one kid during her time as a toy. That said, the lyrics, in proud Toy Story tradition, aren’t explicitly about the toy/human bond — instead, this track tells the story of a loving reunion between long-lost friends, who just needed to see each other to remember that they love each other.

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“Writing this song felt like a musical departure and coming home at the same time,” Swift wrote on X. “Creating something for Jessie was a new challenge and also felt like second nature all at once. And being a @toystory kid from the age of 5 til now… is an adventure I plan to be on, to infinity and beyond.”

Swift also thanked Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton “for imagining me for this, all those years ago when you wrote this newest film” and Newman for “the gorgeous sonic tapestry of songs and scores you’ve meticulously woven over the years. You created the Toy Story musical world, and we are lucky to get to live in it.”

Up to now, Newman has defined the lyrical soul of the Toy Story franchise, owing four of his Oscar nominations for Best Original Song — and one of his wins — to these movies. Meanwhile, this is far from Swift’s first time crafting a new song for a movie: Her first tracks for the screen came in 2009 for Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009). Since then, she’s contributed multiple songs to the soundtracks for The Hunger Games films, collaborated with Zayn for Fifty Shades Darker, and most infamously chased an Oscar nomination when she wrote “Beautiful Ghosts” with Andrew Lloyd Webber for 2019’s Cats.

She has yet to receive Academy Award recognition for any of her contributions, though — something “I Knew It” seems ready to fix, the sort of aggressively pleasant and sweet track likely to slip into the Oscars race. The promise of Swift performing it live on the stage of the Dolby Theater, come March 14th, 2027, feels more than likely.

Per Swift’s talent for the business of music, there are three different collector’s edition CD versions of “I Knew It, I Knew You” available through her website. Meanwhile, you’ll be able to hear the song in context when Toy Story 5 premieres on June 19th. Check out the stream below.

Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department [2LP Ghosted White]
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