Taylor Swift Announces Toy Story 5 Song, “I Knew It, I Knew You”

If the first four Toy Story movies didn’t make you cry enough, there’s another reason to bring tissues when you see Toy Story 5. On June 1, Taylor Swift announced her new song for the long-awaited sequel, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” confirming weeks of rumors that she wrote an original song for the film.

Taking to social media, Swift made a dad joke referencing her 2008 hit “Love Story,” writing, “It’s a *Toy* Story,” and revealed the song’s release date. “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,” she explained. “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?”

According to a press release from Disney, “I Knew It, I Knew You” is inspired by “rootin’ tootin’ cowgirl” Jessie’s journey in the new film, making it Swift’s grand return to country music. She also shared some flower and grass-filled new photos with the announcement, harkening back to her country roots. The song sees her reunite with her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff after not working with him on her record-breaking 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl.

“It’s incredible just how meaningful it’s been having Taylor write and perform this song,” Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton said in a statement. “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.”

Fans speculated that Swift wrote a song for the film’s soundtrack after a 48-hour countdown appeared on her official website on April 30, filled with the blue skies and animated block-style clouds that perfectly fit the Toy Story aesthetic. However, the page was taken down just 15 minutes later, making it clear the countdown went up too early.

A few weeks later, Stanton and some Toy Story producers denied that Swift was involved in the film, stating that the end credits song they heard in the most recent cut wasn’t hers (but saying it “would be pretty amazing” if it was). However, on May 29, a Toy Story-themed billboard was spotted with simply the initials “TS.” Yes, this meant they totally lied to us.

While that could’ve just been excused as a film reference, there were exactly 13 clouds in the background, matching Swift’s famous lucky number. Over the weekend, Disney and Swift dropped many more Easter eggs, from clouds being added to her 1989 album cover on streaming platforms to capitalizing the letters T and S on the lyrics of all of Swift’s famous Track 5s.

Fans can pre-order collector's edition CDs of “I Knew It, I Knew You” on Swift’s official web store, including both piano and acoustic versions of the track with new vocals.