Taylor Swift returns to country roots with ‘Toy Story 5’ release: I’m ‘coming home’
This showgirl is going back to her country roots.
FTaylor Swift released “I Knew It, I Knew You” on Friday, her new song for the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack, and it felt like “a musical departure and coming home at the same time.”
The pop star, 6, posted a throwback Instagram video of herself dressed as the film franchise’s Jessie character via Instagram, calling the project a “new challenge” that came “second nature.”
She gushed, “Being a @toystory kid from the age of 5 til now… is an adventure I plan to be on, to infinity and beyond.
“Thank you to the brilliant [filmmaker] Andrew Stanton for imagining me for this, all those years ago when you wrote this newest film,” Swift continued.
“Thank you to the incomparable @randynewmanofficial for the gorgeous sonic tapestry of songs and scores you’ve meticulously woven over the years,” the Grammy winner went on to write. “You created the ‘Toy Story’ musical world, and we are lucky to get to live in it.”
The singer clarified that she wrote the song with pal — and frequent 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 told her followers. “’I Knew It, I Knew You’ from Toy Story 5 is out everywhere now. 🤠🐴”
The song’s release comes four days after the songwriter revealed to fans that it was on the way.
“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 in a Monday Instagram upload.
“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,” Swift noted at the time. “Sometimes you just know, right?”
The emotional lyrics to the upbeat country song are about reuniting with an old friend.
“Love has ways of bringing things back to life,” she sings. “All you said was ‘Hi’ / And 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.”
“Toy Story,” notably, hits theaters on June 19 — the 20th anniversary of Swift’s debut single, “Tim McGraw.”
The song is from her eponymous 2006 album, and Swift’s country streak continued with “Fearless” in 2008, “Speak Now” in 2010 and “Red” in 2012.
While she incorporated pop into those records, Swift didn’t officially transition from country to pop until releasing “1989” in 2014.
