Ever since Taylor Swift went full-blown pop with her 2014 album 1989, there’s been numerous murmurs, head fakes, false starts, and inferences that certain songs from her have been a return to “country” by the massive global superstar that started in the country genre, even if she was never exactly “country” to begin with. These country accusations were especially prevalent around the release of Swift’s albums Folklore and Evermore in 2020 that certainly had more folk and acoustic moments than Swift fans had become accustomed to from previous records.
But it’s a song from the soundtrack to Toy Story 5 released on Friday, June 5th where Swift writes from the perspective of the cowgirl character Jessie that has Disney and others calling the song “country” or at least “country inspired.”
Written by Swift with producer and twang killer Jack Antonoff, “I Knew It, I Knew You” also comes with other indications we’re supposed to consider it country. This includes the short-form video accompanying the song on Spotify showing a toddler-aged Taylor Swift dressed up like a cowgirl. Most conclusively, the metadata for the song that’s displayed publicly by Apple Music expressly states the song is slotted in “country.”
More than any musical genre, the best way to describe “I Knew It, I Knew You” might be that it’s a Disney song—saccharine, inoffensive, probably catchy and easy to please after a few listens, but designed for mass appeal to younger audiences as opposed to the more adult audience of the country genre.
The song starts off a little country, with harmonica and a rather straightforward beat. It’s really when the lyrical delivery kicks in that the song gets taken out of any real country consideration. By the end of the song, the harmonica gets completely buried in the layers upon layers of production that includes two saxophones, Mellotron, Celesta, and other stuff for Jack Antonoff to earn his pay. Even calling the song “country inspired” feels like a stretch.
Will “I Knew It, I Knew You” have any actual impact on the country genre?
It would have been cool of Taylor Swift really twanged up the song to meet the more twangy moment in both country, and popular music. Some are surmising that maybe a move back towards country will be Taylor’s next play, and this Disney track is just a precursor.
When Swift moved away from country, it was to remove the glass ceiling above her career. Now that the glass ceiling has been shattered by the likes of Ella Langley, and to an extent performers like Morgan Wallen and Post Malone. Maybe now there is an avenue for Swift to make a country return and not take a hit on revenue or popularity.
But country isn’t the same genre it was when Taylor Swift left. When Swift started her career, country was already moving aggressively in a pop direction thanks to performers like mid-career Kenny Chesney, and late career Shania Twain. The [Dixie] Chicks were one of the few popular performers with real country sounds, and they had recently been cancelled. Swift then appeared on the scene and pulled country even more pop.
Listening now to a song like “I Knew It, I Knew You,” and regarding it beside recent hits from Ella Langley, or even Megan Moroney with all the steel guitar on her songs, the Swift song sounds like adult contemporary for kids. It was probably a country song in 2009 when Swift first won the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year. In 2026, it just sounds like another Taylor Swift song.
They might try to service “I Knew It, I Knew You” to country radio as a single. They tried that with “Betty” from Folklore, but the best it could do is #32. Then the murder ballad “No Body, No Crime” from Evermore stalled at #54. It’s hard to see “I Knew It, I Knew You” doing any better, or competing for CMA/ACM/Grammy country awards.
The more interesting question might be if Swift does try to make a more “country inspired” album as her next move. But if it’s as “country inspired” as the new song, it will be hard to call it country at all. This is no shade at Swift. But the reason she left country is because she was mislabeled there by her own assessment, and wanted to be honest with her fans. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to make that same mistake twice.
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