Stevie Nicks Wrote a Poem for Taylor Swift’s New Album, The Tortured Poets Department

As if 31 tracks and extra lyrical burns than an emergency room ready room on the Fourth of July wasn’t sufficient to work with, Taylor Swift’s new double album The Tortured Poets Division additionally options an unique poem penned by none apart from Stevie Nicks.

Bodily copies of the album characteristic a poem by the Fleetwood Mac icon, which lacks a title aside from “A Poem By Stevie Nicks” and bears a handwritten date (Sept. 13, 8:50 p.m.) and dedication: “For T — and me…”

The poem, aptly for the subject material of the album, is about heartbreak and the top of a relationship.

It reads:

Sept. 13, 8:50 p.m.

A poem by Stevie Nicks

He was in love along with her 
Or no less than she thought so 
She was damaged hearted 
Perhaps he was too 
Neither of them knew. 
She was approach too scorching to deal with 
He was approach too excessive to attempt 
He couldn’t even see her 
He wouldn’t open his eyes 
She was on her solution to the celebrities 
He didn’t say goodbye

She seemed again from her future 
And shed a number of tears 
He seemed into his previous 
And really felt worry. 
For each of them 
The solutions — would by no means be 
Everclear 
Don’t ask questions now 
Do this later 
She brings pleasure 
He brings Shakespeare 
It’s nearly a tragedy 
Says she 
Don’t endanger me 
Don’t endanger me.

He actually can’t reply her 
He’s afraid of her 
He’s hiding from her 
And he is aware of — that he’s 
hurting her 
She tells the reality 
She writes about it 
She’s an informer 
He’s an x-lover 
There’s nothing there for her 
She’s already gone 
There’s nothing that may cease her

She was simply flying 
Via the clouds 
The place he noticed her … 
She was simply making her approach — 
to the celebrities — 
When he misplaced her …

For T and me…

Nicks and Swift are not any strangers: They’ve carried out collectively, have vocally been followers of each other, and have been in comparison with each other—the most recent comparability coming from Swift herself on the TTPD monitor “Clara Bow.”

The music is about that quintessential concept of “making it” and turning into the “It Lady.” (Bow, a silent movie star, is taken into account to have pioneered the archetype.) “You appear to be Stevie Nicks / In ‘75, the hair and the lips / Crowd goes wild at her fingertips / Half moonshine, a full eclipse” one verse begins, with the ultimate traces invoking Swift’s identify, wanting right into a future the place she’s simply one other icon of the previous. “You appear to be Taylor Swift / On this mild / We’re loving it. / You’ve acquired an edge she by no means did, / The long run’s vivid / …Dazzling.”

Nicks has additionally praised Swift by means of the years, and in October 2023 thanked her onstage for writing the Midnights monitor “You’re On Your Personal, Child,” invoking the music for instance of how she felt about bandmate Christine McVie, who died in 2022, and why she couldn’t see Fleetwood Mac touring once more with out McVie.

“That was Christine and I. We had been on our personal in that band. We at all times had been. We protected one another,” she stated. “Who am I going to look over to on the appropriate and have them not be there behind that Hammond organ? When she died, I figured we actually can’t go any additional with this. There’s no cause to.”