The singer’s promotional push on country radio disappointed some Swifties.
Taylor Swift’s latest country song is sitting at No. 1 after a Saturday surge on country radio.
The singer’s “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she wrote for the movie “Toy Story 5,” jumped from No. 4 last week to No. 1 on the Mediabase country building chart. The song had logged 9,641 plays as of Sept. 6, more than 550 ahead of Luke Combs’ “Be By You” at No. 2, according to music industry trade publication HITS Daily Double.
The climb capped a week when Swift was hard to miss on country radio. She appeared across three programs Sept. 5, talking about how she and producer Jack Antonoff wrote the song and tried to honor “Toy Story” composer Randy Newman.
The extra attention may have helped push the song to the top, but the way two programs presented Swift’s appearances left some fans feeling bamboozled.
Swifties tune in
Three country radio programs promoted Swift appearances in the days leading up to Sept. 5. Swifties downloaded the iHeartRadio app, shared links to stations and tuned in from around the world. One program even solicited questions for the singer on social media ahead of the broadcast.
On Bob 94.9 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, an announcer told listeners Swift was “in studio” and painted a scene suggesting the superstar and her team were physically at the station.
“You should see the hallway outside our studio,” the announcer said, referencing security, management and friends of staff. “We got a big deal joining us tonight. Taylor Swift is in studio.”
What followed, however, seemed to be prerecorded responses from Swift rather than a live conversation with the hosts.
American Country Countdown also presented what appeared to be prerecorded Swift audio in a question-and-answer format. Host Ryan Fox posed questions before Swift’s responses and occasionally reacted while she was speaking, giving listeners the impression of a back-and-forth interview.
At least one Swift response was heard across all three programs. In the clip, Swift explained how she and Antonoff approached writing “I Knew It, I Knew You” while trying to honor Newman’s musical world for the “Toy Story” franchise.
“When I realized that we were gonna have the opportunity to write a song for ‘Toy Story,’ it really hit me the weight of this, like how lucky we were to get to sort of take up what Randy Newman has created and continue that legacy,” Swift said.
She said the goal wasn’t to reinvent Newman’s sound but to create something that could sit alongside his work.
“I just thought we’re gonna take these beautiful, you know, tapestries of musical art he’s created, brushstroke by brushstroke, and we’re gonna try to create something that would go in that collection,” Swift said. “That you could hopefully, like, hang next to those paintings on the wall if we were talking about paintings.”
WSM host Kelly Sutton, however, was upfront about what listeners were hearing. Before “Y’all Access” aired, Sutton said Swift was not doing an interview and had instead recorded audio about the song for the program.
“Well, clearly Taylor isn’t doing radio interviews, but she did record some audio for us all about the song that she did for the ‘Toy Story 5’ soundtrack, ‘I Knew It, I Knew You,'” Sutton said on social media ahead of the broadcast.
Fans quickly noticed the overlap between the programs.
“So Taylor really did send in a prerecorded audio to these radio stations,” @shiras.version said in a social media video.
“The only radio station that was honest with us and told us about that was ‘Y’all Access Radio,’ and Kelly Sutton was the DJ who clearly explained it was an audio Taylor recorded and then sent it,” she said. “There was no interview.”
“Just tell us the truth,” she added. “We will always figure it out.”
Other fans expressed frustration on X.
“This is just p***ing me off we know it’s not live,” @illicit8affairs wrote.
“Love Taylor down but these radio interviews are so ,” @thissismetryin wrote.
“Never for a second believed we were getting live radio interviews from Taylor today,” @SavLovesSwift wrote, adding that Swift appearances are typically promoted first by the singer or her in-house marketing team, Taylor Nation.
USA TODAY reached out to American Country Countdown and iHeartRadio for comment about whether Swift’s audio was prerecorded and how the segments were presented but did not receive an immediate response.
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Follow Taylor Swift reporter Bryan West on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.