Taylor Swift released her new anthem for “Toy Story 5” Thursday evening, returning to her country roots with a song titled, “I Knew It, I Knew You.”
The pop star commemorated the release of the new track, which was confirmed on Monday, by sharing a home video of herself dressed as a cowgirl as a child. She also penned a lengthy note to fans, in which she said writing the new song for Joan Cusack’s character Jessie felt like “coming home.”
“Writing this song felt like a musical departure and coming home at the same time,” Swift shared on Instagram. “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.”
She added: “Thank you to the brilliant Andrew Stanton for imagining me for this, all those years ago when you wrote this newest film. Thank you to the incomparable [Randy 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.”
As Swift went on, she noted that along with her frequent collaborator, Jack Antonoff, they “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.”
Read her full statement, and hear a snippet of her new song, below.
Speculation that Swift was set to release a song for “Toy Story 5” sprung up at the start of May, when a mysterious countdown appeared on the singer’s website for 2 p.m. ET on May 2. The countdown in-question was set atop a white cloud and pale blue wallpaper – a print similar to the one seen in Andy’s bedroom in the “Toy Story” franchise.
The countdown soon vanished, but the incident sparked the growing “Taylor Swift x ‘Toy Story’” fan theory, leading Swifties to overanalyze her fashion choices, a carefully worded denial from the film’s director and notably vague billboards across the globe.
Then, on Monday, Swift confirmed that she had written a track for the next “Toy Story” movie, sharing the song title in the process.
“I’ve always dreamed of getting to write for these characters who I’ve adored since I was a 5 year old kid watching the first Toy Story movie,” she said in a social media post at the time. “I fell instantly in love with ‘Toy Story 5’ when I was lucky enough to see it in its early stages, and I wrote this song as soon as I got home from the screening. Sometimes you just know, right?”
Director and screenwriter Andrew Stanton celebrated the collaboration with a statement of his own, noting, “It’s incredible just how meaningful it’s been having Taylor write and perform this song. Her connection to Jessie and the immediate way she understood what the character was going through was undeniable. The song is so deeply connected to ‘Toy Story.’ So much so that on first listen, it instantly felt like it had always belonged there, like a long-lost family member. It was kismet.”
As we mentioned, “I Knew It, I Knew You” is inspired by “the rootin’ tootin’ cowgirl Jessie’s ongoing journey” in “Toy Story 5” that began back in “Toy Story 2.”
