Taylor Swift is returning to her roots, y’all. The Life of a Showgirl singer released a new single for Toy Story 5 on June 5 called “I Knew It, I Knew You,” and fans are losing it over Swift returning to her country beginnings. As Swift sings on her new single, “Love has ways of bringing things back to life.”
Over the past few weeks, Pixar has been teasing Swift’s involvement in the film with billboards reading “TS” (on first glance, Toy Story, but also fittingly Swift’s initials) and 13 iconic Toy Story clouds. Then, on June 1, Swift confirmed the rumors herself on Instagram. She wrote, “It’s a Toy Story 🤠 You knew it! My new original song ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’ for Disney and @pixar’s @toystory 5 will be yours on June 5th. 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. 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?”
Now that June 5 is here, fans got the single for themselves. The song was inspired by Toy Story’s Jessie, and opens with Jack Antonoff on the harmonica and acoustic guitar, giving the track an instant country feel. Antonoff also plays banjo and drums on the track, so there’s no question this song feels country-coded. In the song, Swift may be singing about themes of the new movie, but there’s a line that might hint that Swift is also singing about herself and her return to country music. She sings in the second verse, “I watched you drive around the bend for / What I thought would be the last time I saw my friend / But love has ways of bringing things back to life.”
Swift also sings in the chorus, “I remembered I loved you / Came back when it mattered, I saw you / Standing there in the light of the window wearing that same smile / Man, it’s been a while / But I knew it, I knew you.”
Swift also opened up about “coming home” in her Instagram post announcing the single’s release on June 5. She wrote in part, “Writing this song felt like a musical departure and coming home at the same time. 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.”
While it may not be a personal TS single for a new album, “I Knew It, I Knew You” still has fans hype — and they’re loving Swift’s return to country music.
Definitely happy to be back in Swift’s yee-haw era. Toy Story 5 hits theaters on June 19.