The song that became a promise

When Pixar set out to make Toy Story in the mid-1990s, it asked Randy Newman for songs that would speak for the characters without stopping the story. The first thing audiences heard was a loose, piano-led shuffle about loyalty: “You’ve Got A Friend In Me.”

Newman wrote it as a conversation between a boy and his favourite toy, and kept it deliberately plain — a melody you can hum after one listen and a lyric a child can sing back. The song earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Song.

Newman went on to score all four Toy Story films, and the song became the franchise’s heartbeat, returning in new arrangements across the series. Three decades on, it is played at birthdays, graduations and farewells — a short song that has come to stand for friendship itself.