The Taylor Swift Toy Story rumours explained

Will there be a Taylor Swift Toy Story 5 song? Could the T-Swizzle even be in the movie in some way? These are the questions on every Swifty's mind this weekend after a cryptic countdown briefly appeared on her website earlier in the week. The time and date cited passed yesterday with no news, but that's only led to more speculation.

Whether the brief website takeover was intentional or not, surely it meant something? Given the showgirl's love of design Easter eggs and legal actions to protect her own branding, it seems unlikely that the visual nods to Pixar's iconic animation franchise could be accidental (also see the Pixar rules of storytelling).

The Taylor Swift Toy Story rumours started when the singer-songwriter's website taylorswift.com was updated to show on Thursday afternoon (29 April) to show a clock counting down to 2 May at 2pm US Eastern time. The background was immediately recognisable as the blue sky with white clouds that form the wallpaper from Andy's bedroom in the Pixar movies.

Toy Story doesn't have a monopoly on clouds, but their shape is distinct and the design has become a well-known part of the movies' branding, used in posters and key art to promote the franchise. To cement the connection, the font styling used for the timer was yellow with blue outline like the Toy Story logo.

After just ten minutes counting down, the timer was removed, and the website reverting to its Life of a Showgirl design. No comment was made about the mysterious takeover. The date the clock pointed to came and went yesterday with no announcement of any kind on the website or on Taylor Swift's social media accounts.

As any Jehovah Witness will tell you, getting the date wrong doesn't have to ruin a theory. Many Swifties are still convinced that there will be an imminent announcement about a Taylor Swift connection to Toy Story 5 – or Tay Story 5 as some are now calling the movie.

The most popular theory is that Taylor Swift has recorded a song for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack. As well as the countdown, fans have quickly found other 'clues' to link her to the movie.

First, the initials. Taylor Swift. Toy Story. Both are TS. A coincidence? There are plenty more of those. Fans quickly noticed that the Toy Story 5 release date is 19 June. That's 20 years to the day from the release of Taylor's debut single, Tim McGraw, on June 19, 2006.

Some even think they've detected hints of a Toy Story announcement in Taylor's recent choices of outfit. She was seen in New York's West Village on 27 April wearing a striped blue dress with a yellow Dior bag and red heeled sandals – a combination of colours that matches the Toy Story logo. There have also been jokes about the songs Wood ('knock on Woody?') and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.

Could there be a Taylor Swift song in Toy Story 5?

While fans see the 19 June release date as evidence of a grand plan, I'm struggling to believe that Pixar would organise its release cycle around the anniversary of a Taylor Swift single.

It's been noted that the media streaming platform Plex is now showing Taylor Swift in the credits for Toy Story 5, credited for "songs", but others have pointed out that users can edit information on Plex, so this can't be considered official.

The Toy Story 5 soundtrack has already been confirmed to feature Randy Newman's long-serving classic You've Got a Friend in Me plus new, original music by the composer, who's worked on all the Toy Story movies. The Toy Story 5 teaser trailer also featured INXS's Never Tear Us Apart. If Taylor Swift is involved, it's been a well-kept secret (until now).

That said, previous Toy Story movies have seen some guest contributions from famous names. For Toy Story 2, Randy Newman's ballad When She Loved Me was performed by Sarah McLachlan, and Toy Story 3 featured The Gipsy Kings performing a Spanish version of You've Got a Friend in Me.

Taylor has contributed to movie soundtracks in the past. She wrote Today Was a Fairytale for the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day in 2010, and she contributed Safe and Sound to The Hunger Games in 2012. She later worked with Zayn Malik on I Don't Wanna Live Forever from Fifty Shades Darker. She also co-wrote Beautiful Ghosts with Andrew Lloyd Webber for Cats and contributed the original song Carolina to the 2022 thriller Where the Crawdads Sing.

A song for Toy Story 5 would be something much bigger since it's one of the biggest animation franchises. If the rumours are true, it could be a win for both the showgirl and the movie. An original Taylor Swift track on the closing credits would bring a big crowd of Swifties to cinemas for the opening weekend, while a movie soundtrack can immortalise the work of any recording artist, not that Taylor needs that.

The frantic speculation is another example of how Taylor has made such an art of dropping cryptic clues that fans now dissect every detail. For many, the question now is, if the countdown was published early by mistake, when was it supposed to go live?