Taylor Swift has always had a friend in Toy Story, so imagine her excitement to record an original song for the fifth movie.
Appearing on the Toy Story: 30 Years and Beyond special on 20/20 that aired Friday, June 12, Swift, 36, opened up about her involvement and revealed the moment that made her particularly emotional.
Swift wrote “I Knew It, I Knew You” to accommodate a new backstory for cowgirl figurine Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack).
Speaking on the 20/20 special, Swift shared that one line she wrote for the song really tugged on her heartstrings.
““For Jessie, I feel like the line, ‘I watched you drive around the bend for what I thought would be the last time I saw my friend,’ that hits me really hard because that movie just broke my heart,” Swift said. “So I’m really happy to like, give her a happy moment. ”
Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, who voiced Woody and Buzz Lightyear respectively, detailed how Swift’s involvement was shrouded in secrecy.
“They literally pulled us into a room and said, ‘Shut the door,’” Hanks, 69, said. Allen, 73, added, “I thought they were going to say, ‘Aliens are real.’”
In the special, Swift added that she was “grateful” to be allowed to create music for the latest Toy Story instalment.
“I felt wonderful knowing that I had Randy [Newman]’s blessing to write for this film, given that I’m the first songwriter to get to partake in the Toy Story world outside of Randy,” Swift said in a preview for the 20/20 sit-down. “I was absolutely dazzled by [the movie]. It is my favorite Toy Story movie. Don’t mind me, just really liked the movie.”
Swift recently joined forces with Newman, 82, as they performed a duet of his song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” at the Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday, June 9. The 14-time Grammy winner also sang “I Knew It, I Knew You” for the first time during the screening.
Swift, a childhood fan of the Toy Story franchise, collaborated with Jack Antonoff on the new song.
“It’s a *Toy* Story ,” Swift wrote via Instagram on June 1, announcing the single. “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?”
Days later, Swift revealed via Instagram that her songwriting journey felt like a “musical departure and coming home.”
“Creating something for Jessie was a new challenge and also felt like second nature all at once,” the pop star mused in a June 5 upload. “And 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 Andrew Stanton for imagining me for this, all those years ago, when you wrote this newest film. Thank you to the incomparable @randynewmanofficial 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.”
Swift concluded, “By we, I mean myself and my pal @jackantonoff. 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.”
Toy Story 5 hits theaters Friday, June 19.
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