Katey Rich is on holiday hiatus — don’t worry, she’ll be back on Monday with her final Emmy predictions and more — so for today’s edition of Prestige Junkie, here’s Rob LeDonne on Taylor Swift’s latest Oscar gambit.
When Taylor Swift was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this past spring, she didn’t ask Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell or Tim McGraw to introduce her.
She asked Steven Spielberg.
“He thinks that this is the first time he has inducted me into something, but what he may not be taking into consideration is that through his decades of spellbinding storytelling, Steven Spielberg has unknowingly inducted me and countless others into his sacred club of expansive world-building,” Swift said in June.
Yes, even though Spielberg’s Disclosure Day was newly in theaters, the filmmaker was there to help give Swift her flowers (and maybe move some of her fans to the box office). At the same time, Spielberg’s selection felt pointed. After all, he’s an Oscars magnet who is routinely treated like the industry’s mayor whenever he attends an awards-season event — and just five days earlier, Swift released her new song for Toy Story 5.
Says People music editor Ilana Kaplan, “It made me wonder if this signaled a bigger pivot to film and the beginning of a moment for her to get an Oscar.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Swift tried — we’ll get to the Cats of it all in a bit — but this might be her best shot.
Going for Gold
There are worse ways for Swift to earn an Oscar nomination than “I Knew It, I Knew You” — a cutesy song she apparently wrote in less than a day with production from Jack Antonoff that doubles as her foray back into country music.
While The Ankler’s awards editor, Katey Rich, notes to me that the official reasoning behind the Toy Story-Swift collaboration is that Swift was a big fan of the franchise, “The cynics, of course, assumed she did this only because it’s a strong path toward an Oscar nomination, and they’re not wrong.”
It’s true: Every previous Toy Story song, all written by Randy Newman, has been nominated — but only one of them has won. (Surprisingly, the winner wasn’t the classic “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from the original Toy Story, but rather Newman’s “We Belong Together” from 2010’s Toy Story 3.)
“It most definitely seems like Taylor is angling for the Oscar,” says Annie Zaleski, author of the New York Times best-seller Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs. “It makes sense: She’s received nearly every music-related award and honor already and won an Emmy Award in 2015 (for best creative achievement in interactive media).” Now Zaleski sees a long game: “The next logical step is achieving an EGOT” — an Emmy, Oscar, Grammy and Tony (she can target that last one once she has her Oscar).
Love Story
Once Swift watched Toy Story 5, she quickly connected to its story — which focused on Jessie, the toy cowgirl voiced by Joan Cusack and first introduced in Toy Story 2.
As Swift recounted in a video posted to social media, she saw a screening of the film at 11 a.m. and finished writing the song less than eight hours later. She and Antonoff recorded “I Knew It, I Knew You” in the studio in time for a 9 p.m. studio visit from former Disney CEO Bob Iger and executive music producer Tom MacDougall. She later said the entire experience was “one of the most fun days of my life.”
Like most things in the Swift-verse, the song was a tightly held secret amid an extended promo campaign that began with an April 30 countdown on her website (which swiftly disappeared but clearly showed the memorable Toy Story-style clouds). It was then radio silence for weeks — with the movie’s director, Andrew Stanton, even going so far as to say that the rumor Swift was involved “surprised” him.
The subterfuge barely held among Swifties, however, and weeks later, a series of billboards emblazoned with “TS” and those same familiar animated clouds started popping up around the world. “I Knew It, I Knew You” was released on June 5, with Swift performing it at the film’s June 9 premiere at Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 a week later (the 15th time Swift has topped the chart).
The positive response was immediate. “It’s nostalgic and personal, while speaking to more universal truths about reclaiming childhood joys and our spirited younger selves,” Zaleski says.
She also points out another layer to the track, with “I Knew It, I Knew You” marking Swift’s triumphant return to her country roots after an extended absence. It’s the first song of hers to chart in the top 10 of the Billboard Country Airplay chart since 2013, when “Red” reached the mark. (It was also the first country song released by a woman to debut in the Country Airplay top 10 since the chart’s inception in 1990.)
“It represents Taylor herself embracing her earlier career,” Zaleski says. “But I love that Taylor isn’t trying to recreate her first few albums. It’s sophisticated, with soulful tinges and prominent saxophones. She’s creating country music based on who she is today, incorporating all of the musical experience and wisdom she’s accumulated.”
Rod Phillips, head of country programming at iHeartMedia, echoes that sentiment.
“This song really highlights her strength as a storyteller and feels authentic to her roots,” he says, “underscoring her ability to create music that resonates on multiple levels.”
‘Knew You’ When
So will all those levels layer up into her first Oscar nomination?
It depends, and history isn’t necessarily on her side.
“Remember [Swift’s] doomed ‘Beautiful Ghosts’ from the even more doomed Cats?” Katey says. (For what it’s worth, that song wound up getting a Golden Globe nomination.)
There have been other attempts to get Swift to the Oscars: “Carolina” from 2022’s Where the Crawdads Sing made the Oscar shortlist for original song, but was ultimately snubbed. (That same year, Swift as a director had her All Too Well short film in contention but didn’t secure a shortlist spot.)
In 2020, the Swift documentary Miss Americana featured an original song, “Only the Young,” that missed the shortlist altogether.
In 2012, her ballad from The Hunger Games soundtrack — “Safe and Sound,” featuring The Civil Wars — won a Grammy but was deemed ineligible for the Oscars.
“Obviously massive pop stars make it into the best original song race all the time, but Taylor does seem to have some kind of unique challenges in front of her — whether because music branch voters think she already has enough success or some other inexplicable reason,” Katey says. “If the song gets left off the shortlist when it’s announced in December, some people will call it a shocking snub, and I will say we should have seen it coming.”
Meanwhile, Zaleski offers one big caveat: “As an artist, she has no creative or commercial precedent. Meaning that her career also has no precedent.” (It’s a notion that could extend to Swift’s personal life, too; how many people do you know who hosted their wedding event at New York’s Madison Square Garden?)
So, time will tell if Swift will cap her big year by starting next year with an Oscar nomination. As she pointed out in her aforementioned acceptance speech: “No one does — or should — make art that appeals to everyone everywhere all the time.”
Maybe not everyone, but what about Academy members?
