Is Taylor Swift’s New Song “I Knew It, I Knew You” Country?
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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June 5, 2026 @ 11:44 am
Sounds country enough for me. I like it, and I could see this fitting icon country radio.
Billie Eilish was originally slotted to have the TS5 song, but was dropped by Disney after the Oscars fiasco. Thank heavens, because ,- country or not – this is far better that whatever sleep srudy inspired, boring slog Eilish would have submitted.
June 5, 2026 @ 11:51 am
Even if it is, its not the sort of country id give time of day too.
June 5, 2026 @ 12:11 pm
Whenever a country artist moves towards another genre, be it rock, pop, or similar, the question is always “which is the real artist”, meaning, was the artist a “real” country artist only shifting to a a different, more commercial, style for the benefit the commerciality, or were they never “true” country artist and only done that due to being active in Nashville or where there was a country scene and played country by default until they can move to what they really wanted to be, a rock or pop or whatever. The answer can be divined once said artist makes it and now can choose their own path. If they return to country, either for good or as a side project, then we can safely assume that they were always “in their heart” country artists, but if they don’t then it’s the “she did country because that’s what it took to become famous in where she lived”.
At this point in her career Taylor Swift can release an album where she reads selected Ninth Court of Appeals depositions translated to Swahili with a Jamaican dancehall production if she likes. The fact that she hasn’t sone anything even remotely adjacent to her original pop-country albums ever since she stopped making these should end this discussion of “return to country”.
June 5, 2026 @ 12:28 pm
hey trigger
can you please review the lainey wilson and john mayer song as well as the song writing team behind the song
it is called Phone, Keys, Wallet and is this song also country?
also as for taylor
this girl can do what she wants
she has earned her stars in both pop and country.
I dont understand why trigger hates or dislikes taylor swift?
June 5, 2026 @ 12:44 pm
As I said in the article, this is no shade at Taylor Swift. I’ve said many times over the years that I respect her as a songwriter, and one of the other reasons I respect her is that when she decided to go pop, she made a conscious effort to come clean about it and say she didn’t want to disrespect fans by calling herself or her music something that it wasn’t. I don’t think this is a bad song. I just don’t think it’s particularly country. That’s the question I wanted to broach and try to answer.
I did listen to the Lainey Wilson/John Mayer song , but kind of failed to see the point of it. I decided to write about this song instead. Maybe I’ll say something about it in the future.
June 5, 2026 @ 12:50 pm
I will say I’ve found the rollout to Wilson’s next album such a mess.
First we got “Can’t Sit Still” which apparently was just a promotional single. Now we have this: which sounds like a partial soft reboot of sorts.
I wonder if there’s some internal shifts and/or friction happening at her label.
June 5, 2026 @ 12:57 pm
lainey has been the chosen queen of country for like 4 years or since COVID
the powers that be have now decided it is ella langely
so maybe lainey’s team are trying to balance that out
June 5, 2026 @ 1:00 pm
the song is ok, I think it is a hybrid of soft country and pop but what struck me about the song is how very not oscar worthy it is
the way the media were hyping the song, It felt like taylor will be a shoe-in for an oscar nomination in 2027 but from what I can see, I don’t think this song will be strong enough to make the court
i think the song she did for the hunger games series was better
June 5, 2026 @ 12:29 pm
There has always been room in the big country tent for quality pop country (think Anne Murray, Al DeLory-era Glen Campbell, a lot of Kenny Rogers, a lot of Crystal Gayle, etc.) and Taylor’s first few albums (IMHO) were quality country pop. This song? Meh…
June 5, 2026 @ 1:14 pm
Is it country? Not really. It’s not noisy or busy or intrusive. This is just a light pop song for a summer Disney movie parents will bring their kids to see.
Does she want to have a toe in the country market anymore? I sort of doubt it.
June 5, 2026 @ 1:28 pm
Country music will never be the no. 1 musical style around the western world.
By the time a Nashville song dominates the chart, it’s transformed to anything but country, but still labelled so by the greedy industry. They all went pop or rock or worse, from Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline to Willie Nelson and Taylor Swift. Choir, strings, synths or loud guitars rather than flat-picking, steel and fiddles.
June 5, 2026 @ 1:39 pm
Why can’t she just grow up like everybody else, and start making the music she WANTS to make, and damn what anybody else thinks. I doubt any of us would want to listen, but then she could at least be respected.
June 5, 2026 @ 1:46 pm
I know you said it in the article, Trig, but Swift was never remotely country. That was simply the genre they chose to launch her in. I get a kick out of artists who say they are leaving one genre to go to another. Most of them were already in the genre they leave. Like you, I respect Swift’s songwriting skills (having the advantage of writing with some of the best songwriters in the world in her formative years didn’t hurt), but her music has always been geared to preteens, soccer moms, and thirty-year-olds who are seventeen in the head.
This song sounds like a cross between Tom Petty and ABBA. It’s actually not bad as background noise, but I wouldn’t listen to it again on purpose. At this point Taylor could fart into a microphone and her fans would buy it, so I’m sure the song will do well.
June 5, 2026 @ 1:48 pm
*most were already in the genre they leave for.