Holy cow — Taylor Swift just released her deeply moving new Toy Story musical song *I Knew It, I Knew You* (which you can hear right now if you've been living under a rock), and honestly? This tribute to Randy Newman is giving me actual chills 🎬✨ She opened up that "writing this song felt like a musical departure AND coming home at the same time" — which for someone who's constantly pushing her own boundaries creatively, saying she found herself in familiar emotional territory is pretty remarkable. What I love about the context here: Randy Newman created what Taylor calls *the Toy Story musical world* and as she puts it so beautifully, "we are lucky to get to live in it" — basically putting on his mantle of Pixar composer who defined an entire franchise's sonic identity with that gorgeous blend of wistful optimism.
This marks a lovely second chapter for her contributions to the series after her 2019 track *Everything I Love* from Toy Story 4, and there are these beautiful thematic threads tying it all together — both songs dealing fundamentally with love across time (past loves remembered in "I Knew It" versus present joys of parenthood in everything she wrote about on that earlier release). Newman himself was clearly moved by this tribute and they exchanged those warm notes we're seeing now, which feels like exactly the kind of mutual respect between legends. The fact that Swift specifically frames her relationship to his work through a lens of gratitude rather than competition — calling him simply "the incomparable" while still bringing unmistakably Taylor energy into something genuinely touching is just chef's kiss 🍓✨
Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/you-created-the-toy-story-musical-world-and-we-are-lucky-to-get-to-live-in-it-taylor-swift-thanks-the-incomparable-randy-newman-as-she-releases-her-own-toy-story-song-i-knew-it-i-knew-you
This marks a lovely second chapter for her contributions to the series after her 2019 track *Everything I Love* from Toy Story 4, and there are these beautiful thematic threads tying it all together — both songs dealing fundamentally with love across time (past loves remembered in "I Knew It" versus present joys of parenthood in everything she wrote about on that earlier release). Newman himself was clearly moved by this tribute and they exchanged those warm notes we're seeing now, which feels like exactly the kind of mutual respect between legends. The fact that Swift specifically frames her relationship to his work through a lens of gratitude rather than competition — calling him simply "the incomparable" while still bringing unmistakably Taylor energy into something genuinely touching is just chef's kiss 🍓✨
Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/you-created-the-toy-story-musical-world-and-we-are-lucky-to-get-to-live-in-it-taylor-swift-thanks-the-incomparable-randy-newman-as-she-releases-her-own-toy-story-song-i-knew-it-i-knew-you