Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You”: Toy Story 5 Song & TikTok Trends Explained

From Toy Story 5 to TikTok: Everything to Know About Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” and September’s Other Viral Hits

If you searched this looking for one thing, here it is: “I Knew It, I Knew You” is Taylor Swift’s original end-credits song for Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” written with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, released June 5, 2026 through Walt Disney Records, and it has spent the summer turning into one of the biggest song-to-TikTok pipelines of the year. Below is the full story behind the song, how it’s playing out online, and what else is actually trending on TikTok right now heading into September.

The quick answer

“I Knew It, I Knew You” is a country-leaning pop song Swift wrote and produced with Antonoff specifically for “Toy Story 5,” which hit theaters June 19, 2026. It plays over the film’s end credits. Swift announced it on June 1 with a countdown on her website featuring Jessie the cowgirl, released the single and music video on June 5, and by the time the movie opened two weeks later, the song already had its own line dance, a couple’s dance challenge, and a lyric trend circulating on TikTok. It’s a strong contender for Swift’s first Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category.

How the song actually came together

According to Swift’s own account, the writing process was fast even by her standards. She saw an early cut of “Toy Story 5” at 11 a.m. one day, and by evening had written and recorded the bulk of the track, in time to play it for Disney CEO Bob Iger at a 9 p.m. meeting the same day. She’s described the burst of songwriting as “the songwriter zoomies,” a phrase that has since shown up in fan commentary about the track. In her announcement post, she connected the song to her own childhood, writing that she’d loved these characters since watching the first “Toy Story” at age five, and that she wrote this one almost immediately after an early screening of the fifth film.

That speed matters for understanding why the song sounds the way it does. It isn’t a polished corporate tie-in ballad; it leans into pedal steel and a country-pop structure that fans have connected to Jessie’s arc across the franchise rather than to Woody or Buzz.

Why this song carries extra weight for the Toy Story franchise

Randy Newman has written the signature song for every prior “Toy Story” movie, and picked up four Oscar nominations for the job along the way: “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from the original film in 1996, “When She Loved Me” from “Toy Story 2” in 2000 (performed by Sarah McLachlan, and arguably the franchise’s most heartbreaking cue, since it’s the song that plays as Jessie recalls being abandoned by her original owner), “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3,” which won the Oscar in 2011, and “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” from “Toy Story 4” in 2020.

Swift’s song follows that same emotional throughline but flips it. Where “When She Loved Me” is about Jessie being left behind, “I Knew It, I Knew You” is framed around recognition and reunion, giving Jessie’s musical arc a joyful counterpart to her saddest moment in the series. That connection is a big part of why the song has resonated with longtime fans of the franchise, not just Swift’s own fanbase.

Timeline of the release

How “I Knew It, I Knew You” spread on TikTok

The song didn’t just chart, it generated its own set of repeatable formats, which is usually the difference between a song that streams well and one that actually goes viral on the platform. A few of the trends built around it:

• A line dance. An independently choreographed 48-count line dance to the track (credited to choreographer Corey Lubowich) spread quickly among country line-dance communities on TikTok, complete with tutorial and demo videos.
• A couples and duo dance challenge. Pairs, including friends, cousins, and romantic partners, have been posting synchronized choreography to the song, often tagged with variations of #IKnewItIKnewYou.
• Lyric and lip-sync videos. Straightforward lyric-video-style posts, along with fan explainers connecting the song back to Jessie’s history in the franchise, have circulated alongside the dance content.

One thing worth flagging if you’re searching around the song’s hashtag: TikTok’s “I Knew It” tag also picks up a completely unrelated meme built around a viral Broly (Dragon Ball Super) reaction clip, plus assorted “I knew it” storytime and Karen-caption videos that have nothing to do with Swift or Pixar. If you’re trying to find the actual Swift trend, search “I Knew It, I Knew You” with the full title, or look for the couple/line-dance tags specifically, rather than the bare phrase “I knew it.”

What else is trending on TikTok going into September 2026

The Swift/Pixar song is part of a broader wave of music-driven TikTok trends this summer. Here’s what else has been circulating heading into September, based on TikTok’s own trending audio activity and creator tracking through August:

• “petal” by Ariana Grande — a newly released track that’s already being used across a wide range of content, from fan edits to pet videos, well beyond just fashion or lyric-focused posts.
• “u + me = <3” by Olivia Rodrigo — soundtracking sentimental photo-carousel posts, with creators pairing the song’s lyrics about lasting friendship with relationship and family content. Members of the group KATSEYE have also used the trend.
• “Golden” by KATSEYE — cited among the most-used trending tracks of August alongside songs from Oliver Tree, part of a broader pop-driven wave dominating the app’s charts that month.
• A Karol G-associated track (“BbY WOW”) — one of the fastest-growing catalog songs by daily video growth in the run-up to September, according to TikTok sound-tracking data.
• Assorted original-audio formats not tied to commercial songs at all, including a “how different our lives are” contrast trend set to Daryl Hall & John Oates, a sped-up saxophone sting used as a comedic red-flag cue, and a “Preparing for my Netflix documentary” mock-confessional format.

Worth noting: TikTok trend cycles move fast, and what’s climbing in late August can look different by mid-September. If you want the most current snapshot, TikTok’s own Creative Center and third-party trackers like Tokchart update daily.

Frequently asked questions

Is “I Knew It, I Knew You” only in the movie, or is there a full single version? Both. The version that plays over the credits is part of the film, but Swift also released it as a commercial single on June 5, along with acoustic and piano arrangements, ahead of the movie’s theatrical release.

Who wrote and produced the song? Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff wrote and produced it together, continuing their long-running songwriting partnership.

Could this song get Taylor Swift an Oscar nomination? It’s a plausible contender for Best Original Song, given the “Toy Story” franchise’s track record in that category, though nominations for the relevant awards season hadn’t been announced as of this writing.

Is the TikTok “I Knew It” trend the same as the Taylor Swift song? Not always. TikTok’s “I Knew It” audio tag also includes an unrelated meme built around a Dragon Ball Super clip and various unrelated storytime videos. Search the full song title or look for line-dance and duo-dance tags to find the Swift-specific content.

What’s the connection between this song and Jessie’s arc in “Toy Story 2”? Jessie’s most well-known musical moment in the franchise is “When She Loved Me,” the Randy Newman-written, Sarah McLachlan-performed song about being abandoned by her original owner. Fans and commentators have read “I Knew It, I Knew You” as an emotional counterpart to that song, turning a story about being forgotten into one about being found again.