Taylor Swift Plays ‘Clara Bow' in Front of Stevie Nicks for Live Debut of ‘Tortured Poets' Track in Dublin

01/07/2024

Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks reunited in Dublin on Sunday (June 30), with The Eras Tour headliner dedicating the night's acoustic section to the iconic Fleetwood Mac singer.

It was the perfect occasion for Swift to perform The Tortured Poets Department‘s "Clara Bow" live for the first time ever; she names Nicks on the second verse of "Clara Bow," singing: "You look like Stevie Nicks/ In '75, the hair and lips/ Crowd goes wild at her fingertips/ Half moonshine, a full eclipse."

"I've never played this song live at all," she noted before "Clara Bow," which was one of her two surprise performances at her Aviva Stadium concert Sunday, her third date in Ireland.

"The reason I want to play this tonight is because a friend of mine is here who is watching the show," Swift hinted. She praised this friend for paving the way for her in music, saying she's "one of the reasons why I get to do what I get to do" - and that she's been a guiding hand to many female artists.

Added Swift, "She's a hero of mine. I could tell her any secret; she'd never tell anybody."

"I'm talking about Stevie Nicks," Swift announced, leading the audience in a massive round of applause.

Playing on guitar, Swift worked lyrics from "The Lucky One" - her 2012 Red song with a theme that parallels that of "Clara Bow" - into the live debut of "Clara Bow."

Swift then played "You're on Your Own, Kid," from her 2022 Midnights album, on piano. At Sunday's show, there was an unsaid reason for her choice of song: it has personal meaning to Nicks.

In May 2023, Nicks expressed her gratitude to Swift for writing the song, at it's helped her mourn the late Christine McVie, Nicks' dear friend and bandmate who passed away in November 2022. "Thank you to Taylor Swift for doing a favor for me, and that is writing a song called ‘You're on Your Own, Kid.' That is the sadness of how I feel," she said on stage last year in Atlanta.

"Never an argument in our entire 47 years," Nicks said of her deep connection with McVie. "The two of us were on our own, kids. We always were. And now, I'm having to learn to be on my own, kid, by myself. You helped me to do that. Thank you."

The rock icon was first spotted by fans in the Dublin stadium earlier at Swift's show on Sunday, walking to and from the VIP tent that's set up for Swift's guests.

Nicks, in town for her own tour (with a date in Dublin on July 3), is directly connected to Swift's The Tortured Poets Department, which rules at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a 10th consecutive week. The singer-songwriter penned a poem "for T - and me…" that appeared on the album art for physical copies of the set, Swift's 11th studio album.

The poem, in part, reads: "She looked back from her future/ And shed a few tears/ He looked into his past/ And actually felt fear/ For both of them/ The answers - would never be/ Everclear/ Don't ask questions now/ Do that later/ She brings joy/ He brings Shakespeare/ It's almost a tragedy/ Says she/ Don't endanger me/ Don't endanger me."

In the next stanza, Nicks writes: "He really can't answer her/ He's afraid of her/ He's hiding from her/ And he knows - that he's hurting her."

More than 14 years ago, at the 2010 Grammy Awards, Swift and Nicks sang a medley of Fleetwood Mac's 1976 hit "Rhiannon" and Swift's 2009 hit "You Belong With Me."

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