I Knew It, I Knew You: Taylor Swift’s answer for Toy Story’s Jessie

Taylor Swift took on a daunting task by writing a song for Toy Story’s cowgirl Jessie, one that knowingly follows Randy Newman’s devastating “When She Loved Me.” She acknowledged Newman’s “incomparable” work and did not attempt to outdo it; instead, her own soundtrack history — beyond the Zayn collab “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” — has rarely lingered.

“I Knew It, I Knew You” feels like an answer song, a moment of gentle elation as Jessie recognises her former owner: not a ballad but a warm reunion. Swift’s lines are tight and vivid — toys are “parachutes for the free fall of being younger,” Jessie knew “all your blues like a mood ring changing colours” — and her singing is deliberate, the soft, staccato insistence carrying a trace of anxiety.

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