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T<\/span>aylor Swift does not fear a challenge. She\u2019s broken records then broken those records; taken Grammy snubs as a sign she just has to work harder; mounted probably the most physically exhausting tour of all time. But in writing a song for Toy Story\u2019s cowgirl Jessie, she\u2019s set herself a deranged task: how could anyone<\/em> outdo Randy Newman\u2019s devastating When She Loved Me<\/a>, Jessie\u2019s song about being abandoned by her owner, Emily, from Toy Story 2?<\/p>\n Newman\u2019s songs for the Disney Pixar series are some of the greatest film soundtrack work of all time, and Swift knows it. In a post about her song, she acknowledged the \u201cincomparable\u201d Newman<\/a>: \u201cYou created the Toy Story musical world, and we are lucky to get to live in it.\u201d Her own ventures into soundtrack work have never had much staying power (beyond Zayn collab I Don\u2019t Wanna Live Forever<\/a> from Fifty Shades Darker).<\/p>\n Thank God, she doesn\u2019t try to. I Knew It, I Knew You<\/a> feels like an answer song to When She Loved Me as Jessie and Emily are (presumably) reunited. It\u2019s not a ballad but a moment of gentle elation as the once-favourite toy recognises everything about her former owner years later \u2013 her smile, the sound of her bare footsteps.<\/p>\n Firmly in Swift\u2019s nostalgic wheelhouse, it has some of her loveliest (and tightest) songwriting in quite some time: toys are \u201cparachutes for the free fall of being younger\u201d; Jessie knew \u201call your blues like a mood ring changing colours\u201d. Last month, Swift talked to the New York Times<\/a> about the granular technicalities of how she sets words and sounds against each other. Her singing here is so lovely and intentional; the soft, staccato insistence of these lines trembles with a trace of anxiety at how precarious even that deep love can be.<\/p>\n