The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Light of Stardom in Clara Bow

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

We are taking it back to the 1920s (and then the 1970s) today with Clara Bow from The Tortured Poets Department. Uncle Jerry talks all about the early film industry, Stevie Nicks, the violence of beauty and fame for women, and so much more. Works Cited:Clara BowThe Jazz Singer (1927)Greta GarboDouglas FairbanksJohn GilbertMichael CurtizCasablanca (1942)The Lodger (1947)World’s Columbian Exposition (1893)The Birth of a Nation (1915)It (1927)It – Elinor Glyn – Aff LinkCaesuraHoratio AlgerDeath of a Salesman – Arthur MillerA Cool Million – Nathanael West – Aff LinkThe Tragical History of Doctor Faustus – Christopher MarloweTo an Athlete Dying Young – A. E. HousmanIdle Fame – John ClareThe Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson – Aff LinkFame is a fickle food (1659) – Emily DickinsonFame is a bee. (1788) – Emily DickinsonMirrorball/Clara Bow Mash-upThe Swiftie and The Scholar Grading MatrixFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠Threads⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠Uncle Jerry’s Instagram

Welcome to The Swiftie and The Scholar, the podcast where we examine the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy of Taylor Swift. Don't make me start laughing just before we start. I am Angela McDowell the Swifty. And I am Dr. Jerry Coates, the laughing scholar. How are you doing, Uncle Jerry? I'm good. Thank you very much. I feel like you Easter eggs the heck out of this one from the last episode.

Yeah, I hope that someone might have looked up and said, hey, are they talking about that one? Yeah. So we are back in our tortured poets era today with Clara Bow. We were talking about fame

and celebrity last week, so I wanted to do these back to back because I feel like they kind of touch on the same themes a little bit. You're so tricky because I read through them, if you didn't watch last week, shame on you, but also get back there.

She, Angela sent me these before she left on her fantastic world tour. And so I had several weeks to look at them. And, you know, I'm not too dull. It took me a day or two before I realized, hey, these are both about fame. Yeah. This is about celebrity. Yeah. So today we're doing Claire Bow.

This is a fun one. I think I literally gasped out loud in my. bedroom hearing the last is it the last chorus or the outro the outro the outro I said what did she just say? She pulls a classic Taylor Swift. Yeah

she does yeah so this one is written and produced by Taylor and Aaron Dessner Not Jack Antoninot No Jack today This was one of Chase's favorites whenever this album first came out

And I'm not sure why We'll have to ask him But he loved it. We'll have to ask, we'll have him on as a guest. Okay, yeah, everyone loved that. Yeah. He would love that, I'm sure. Okay, that's all I have.

Claire Bow, you're going to teach us all about her, I'm sure. Now I'm imagining Chase sitting between his very taciturn fellow. Yeah, he's just like the quietest. Okay, Clara Bo. Yes. Yes. Hollywood's first It Girl. Hollywood's It Girl.

Yeah, so I actually read a biography once with Clara Bow, and I would impress... We're all shocked. I know, I would impress you by flashing it, but I'm not a flasher. So, I mean, I do occasionally show a book or two. And I just might do that in this episode. Oh, okay. But now I read it and then I gave it away. I mean, it was kind of fun, but it was not the kind of thing I want to keep around.

I have a book or two. Just a few. And so I thought, I can send this. off to half-price books for resale. But it was interesting, yeah. Clara Bow was The Hit Girl. She was a young starlet in the age of silent movies. She did make, I think, 11 sound, 11 talkies.

So for you who are unfamiliar, you know, in the late 1920s, they made the transition from silent films to talking films. And one of the first was the jazz singer featuring Al Jolson. in which Al Jolson, very ironically, very humorously, turns to the camera and says, you ain't heard nothing yet, and he sings a song. Cute. I know, I love it because it's like you literally hadn't heard anything yet.

You know, I mean, so if you're not familiar, can I talk about just silent films? Of course. Because I love silent pictures. You know, so many of my friends in school were in movies. in movies. They were at the University of Texas. I was doing other things, but they were all in the School of Communications in RTF, radio television film. Several of them went on to find careers in that. My college roommates, Mike Barker, Michael Barker, you know, Google him. He's the

president of Sony International Studios. What? Yeah, Mike went on to do that. He went to New York, actually, to act, and really just found out that buying film catalog. and distributing them under Orion Pictures made them a whole lot more money. Yeah, it's a way to the bank. Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of them went into that. So I went to the movies with them, took a film appreciation class and, you know, love silent films. You know, Greta Garbo is my favorite.

You know, so it really, one of the first questions I had for this was why did she pick Clara Bo? But I began to see why when you read through the poem. And, but there are a lot of great ones. You know, she, Clara Bow was great. I don't know, Douglas Fairbanks, wonderful. You know, I mentioned Greta Garbo, my favorite. I think she's absolutely wonderful, both in silent and sound movies. She would star in the silent films with a guy named John Gilbert, really brilliant actor.

And a lot of directors came up during that time. Michael Curtis, the guy who directed Casablanca. Okay. If you watch Casablanca, it's a classic film from the 40s, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman. You know, don't watch the actors. Don't watch them the action. Look at the use of shadow.

Look at the use of gray scale. You know, he's a master at gray scale. And Curtis developed his mastery during silent pictures. Cool. And, of course, Alfred Hitchcock came up during silent pictures. The Lodger, great silent film by Hitchcock. So, you know, Clara Bow is great. She was the It Girl.

She began starring at a time when half of America regularly went to the movie theater. Wow. You know, so you think about silent films. You know, films kind of made their debut for Americans at the 1893 Columbia Exposition. Okay. celebrating, you know, Columbus and the Discovery of America, something that first Americans, Native Americans probably don't always celebrate. Right, right.

Nevertheless, it was held in Chicago, very famous, white city built around that event, and they showed early motion pictures there, and it absolutely enthralled people. and that thrall never stopped. Yeah. People continued going to a point in the 20s when, as I said, half of America would regularly go see a movie. So, you know, you figure that the rise of radio

was just on the brink of the mid to late 1920s, so movies had been going before that, right? Birth of a Nation, great film. A great film as a pioneering work, maybe not great in terms of its subject matter. But, you know, not. 19, people saw these movies,

and Clara Bo was all part of that. You know, why was she the It Girl? She started in a film titled It, you know. Oh, really? Yeah. She was in, I've seen three or four of her movies there, and they're really fun. She's vivacious, cute,

occasionally androgynous. Okay, yeah, I do know that. Like, I feel like one of the things about her was, like, she was one of the first women to, like, kind of cut her hair. and not one of the first women, but, you know, like in the spotlight. She was a self-avowed tomboy. Yeah, okay.

And she was proud of her arms. She liked her guns. Okay. She said that she could arm wrestle a lot of men, but petite still, cute, you know, just terrific eyes. So I think she's a good choice for this. I do have, she acted in it was written, was actually a novel written by Eleanor Glenn, so I don't have It by Eleanor Glenn, but this is the first edition of a book by Eleanor Glenn. She was a...

I love this because it's in the original dust cover. So, you know, there's the original book. Cool. Yeah, so it has the dust cover. Dust covers are highly collectible. Sometimes the dust cover is actually worth more than the book itself. Yeah, because I assume those get, like, torn and messed up. Yeah.

So, like, I have a first edition of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, right? and it's worth a little bit of money but if I had the first edition with the original dust cover I mean it's crazy money because the dust cover deteriorates so Eleanor Glenn was a controversial writer

who wrote about lesbianism androgyny divorce I know all kinds of terrible things and Clara Bo was in a couple of movies inspired by her works so can I show you two pictures real quick

sure So when Taylor announced this album at the Grammys, this is what she was wearing. Oh, really? And this was before we knew like the track list or anything. So I was like, what are we doing here? And then after it came out, this is what we realized. She was like being Clarabot. So she's wearing an outfit like Clara Bo would wear it.

Yeah, and she had like long gloves on. Right. Oh, that's fun. And then there's also in a music video from the. this album. She does her makeup, along with the little neck, the choker like Clarabotos with a choker with a kind of rectangular stone in the middle. Yeah, pretty cool, right? Yeah. Yeah, really cool. Those are not, these, these aren't references that I like understood on my own. I had to be told them, you know, but. So I wonder, I mean, does she say, you know, I don't know what she says about the song,

does she say she did that intentionally by herself or does she have a team that dresses her that I mean, she definitely does have a stylist that she's worked with for, like, most of her career. I see. And so I assume that they, like, help with all of that stuff, yeah. Right. But, no, I don't think she's really talked about the specifics. How and who and why she makes that decision. Yeah.

Okay. The title of poem, Clara Bow. Yes. Clara Bow. And so I was thinking when I first looked at it, I thought, oh, this is a poem about Clarabo. And so I start reading, and then all of a sudden, verse two. Stevie Nix. You're like, wait, what?

We go from her to Stevie Nix, and then we go to the outro, and bam, Taylor Swift hits us with one of those turns, right? So, you know, the turn that she's very famous for, and we pointed out in several of his songs, you know, kind of gives us a surprise ending where she sort of inverts us, inverts the idea that we're following, someone's going to replace her. So it took me about 10 minutes as a feminist reader to realize, ah, these are all women, right? For example, she chooses Clara Bow, not John Gilbert or Valentino or Douglas Fairbanks. You know, she chooses Stevie Nicks, not some male singer from the 1970s.

So she's not just talking about fame and celebrity with clearly one of the themes of the work, but she's also talking about the roles of women embedded in fame and celebrity. Right. So you've got to keep that in the back of our mind. You know, like literally I read it through one time and I thought, okay, wait, they're all women. Now I have to reread it with the understanding that she's talking about the nature of celebrity and women in that. role and the roles women have to assume in order to be famous. Right.

So, verse one. Yes. You know, there's a little bit different, and unlike a mirror ball, a mirror ball that's so dominated by the focusing conceit, that metaphor of the mirror ball, with the voice of the mirror ball going throughout. You know, instead, we do start with quotes in this one, so immediately you have to add ask why and who's the speaker. So, you know, you look like Clarabo.

In this light, remarkable all your life, did you know? You'd be picked like a rose. You know, so someone is talking. It's a talent agent. It's a scout. It's someone talking to the prospective starlet. Right. Right.

So someone went to Claribo and said, oh, you know, you're amazing. You look this way. you could be picked like a rose. Poetically, you remember in, if you go back to Mirabal, I mentioned that there's really almost no use of rhyme at all,

that in fact it's conversational. But, you know, here, instead of being metaphorical conversational, the monologue delivered by the Mirabal, instead we have a series of speeches delivered by a series of talent scouts. Right. So it's generation after generation,

generation after generation of talent scouts trying to hype up, trying to recruit, trying to sign as an agent, the prospective famous person. Right. You know, so, so we have the quotes, and he says, you look like Clara Bow. So there's a comparative setup. And, you know, unlike the other one, which was natural dialogue, natural speech, this one is all rhymed. Right? Bo, remarkable, no, rose. So not exact rhyme, perfect rhyme, as we say, between no and rose, but it's a literative rhyme because you have the same vowel rhyme. And she's going to do that with the, you know, elsewhere in the poem. For example, in the chorus thing, rings, everything dazzling. And then in verse two, nicks, lips, fingertips, Eclipse.

That's interesting because it's like these aren't her speaking. Right. And in Mirrorball, it is her. And so she's like being, this is real, this is introspective. This is like coming from inside of me. But these are all like rehearsed lines from these talent agents or whatever. And so she makes them very like fit perfectly. There you go.

Okay. I am retiring from this work. Angela will be taking over as a scholar. No, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I love it, I, I love it that, I love it that you gave me these two poems together, so that I could kind of read them one in retrospect of the other, because Mirabal is sort of natural conversation, it is her voice, but, and, I'm, But this is unnatural, if you was, stilted conversation.

He's trying to convince her. Right. He's trying to persuade her. Right. Come along with me. Sign here. Right. And so the rhyming is like sing-song.

It's like a siren song calling her to celebrity. Interesting. Yeah. So it is artificial because they're trying to befriend her. It's not genuine friendship. No. No. Right? The artificiality of it is reflected in the use of perfect rhyme.

You know, because when you scan this, it's A, A, A, A, A, yeah. Right? It's the same rhyme every time at the end of the line. And probably the same speech he's given to everybody he's ever tried to sign. Decade through decade. Right. There was a clear artificiality about it. Interesting.

Also, you're waiting for Jerry's prediction on how this. is going to sound. Okay. Okay. Please notice the heavy use of Sysheura in verse one. So when she sings it... I feel like I haven't talked about Syshura in a while. I know. Sychara. It's going to be good for the bingo cards. The break in the middle of a poetic line, right? That break in the middle of the line that causes you to pause. So when she sings this, you can tell me if I'm right. She's going to sing, you look like Clara Bow. in this light remarkable all your life did you know you'd be picked like a rose am i right we don't even need to do this anymore i don't even need to hear the song yes that is exactly right

is that right yeah okay yeah well you know she's done it before when she uses i sure yeah she sings it in those broken lines you know and i like i like what the line how the lines mind's break. You look like, who can I think of? Clarabot, you know, the it girl. You know, in this light, you know, what does she look like? Engaging, fascinating, no.

Remarkable, you know, all your life. Did you know? You know, I bet you knew you were this great. Yeah. You'd be picked like what, like what? I got to complete assembly here. Got to make a comparative. Ah, like a rose.

Yeah, the most beautiful thing anyone can think. of. That's right. Well, and I think the writer, our poet, I refuse to use the word poetess, by the way. Oh, is that a word? Oh, yeah, poetess. It's not good. No, it is an old-fashioned. It's like actress, right? Just call them all actors. Don't try to divide them by gender. We're fine. Everyone's fine. It is a method of labeling, you know, so don't disrespect women in that way. And that's that. That's that. Those are Jerry's rules.

So, yes, the poet here, I think, chooses rose, because as you point out, rose is beautiful. But roses are also rare. They are fragile. They're cultivated and put on display. They're even known for their fragrance, their smell. And, I mean, how much more invasive can you get than to go up and smell a person? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah.

And this is part of the nature of celebrity. I mean, I think that Taylor Swift is smart enough. You know, I'm crediting, again, her with a high degree of intentionality. You know, she is, she's going to talk about the fleeting nature of celebrity and the artificiality of celebrity. And so she also, I think, is talking about the invasiveness. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, because we've got all our noses up in her life. Right. Oh, we do, right? I mean, yeah, I've mentioned before since I started the podcast, you know, I look at my news feed and articles about Taylor Swift. I just, I never even read. I just kept flipping on by. And now I think, oh, man, that one looks interesting. And I'll kick it. I think, am I supposed to be reading this? Is Angela going to be okay? You know, and, yeah, people, people want to know everything about her. And it's like, dang, I know she's famous. You might.

back off just a minute. Okay, so you go back to the to the first line in the first verse. You know, why Clara Vaux? She's charismatic. She's beautiful. She was considered desirable, both by men and women.

Okay. Also note that she was very youthful. You know, she comes onto the scene when she's about 16 years old. I know somebody else who came onto the scene when they were 16 years old. Well, let's go down to Stevie Nix. Oh,

know. How old was Stevie Nix? About 16. Oh, gosh. Okay. That's smart of her. Yeah, I think that she is, I wondered, I couldn't remember what you had said. Now, I don't look these things up. Yeah. Yeah, I grew up with Stevie Nix and I read a biography of Clara Bo. But I thought you had said that she came up when she was very young. Her debut album came out when she was 16. Did it really? Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, why did she choose Clara Bo and Stevie Nix? I think in part, because they're the same age. she was when she began her rise into fame. Interesting. Yeah. And then he says in the second line, In this light, you're remarkable. Yeah. In this light is really an interesting phrase

that I think carries with it a multity meaning. Okay. Vivian, that's ambiguity. We've got to meet Vivian. I know. So, yeah, why is that ambiguous? Well, I mean, so the light's both literal and metaphorical. Okay.

Right? So in this light, while I'm looking at you right now, babe, you're remarkable. But it's also in this, the light is the shine of celebrity. It's the spotlight that your whole life is going to undergo from now on. It's also, you know, when they film a movie, light is artificial, right? One of my best friends, one of my other college roommates was in the film version of ATF at UT, and he had to make films for his project. He made a movie titled 48 Hours Without Eat.

And we had to go. 48 hours without food and he showed us at a table trying to eat and like we couldn't because we were too sleepy and awake and we filmed it overnight and so in order to film the daylight versions he put these huge bright lights outside of a window so it looks like it was coming in yeah you know the light of filmmaking is artificial interesting yeah so I think that the light has a lot of different meetings in this artificial spotlight that we create for you you are remarkable. Was she in her own self remarkable?

Clara Bowes just this little girl. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even have time to be remarkable yet, really. With, I should point out, a fairly tragic life. You know, her mother, mother fell out of a window by accident and suffered some brain damage and was kind of swung back and forth and her lucidity. At one point, Clara Boe said that she woke. up and her mother had a knife to her throat and had to be pulled off of her.

In this light of the 1920s, she would be remarkable, but it was artificial in a lot of different ways. Interesting. Does Taylor Swift have that same largesse of the press not covering her? Oh, large s of the press. Not covering her. She does not. No. That light's always on.

Yeah. All your life, did you know? you know, she announced to her mother she wanted to be a movie star at a very young age. You'd be picked was also really interesting. She was picked. She was initially got attention by being in a talent show. Oh, okay. And she was picked in the talent show.

She got like a ball gown and a silver trophy. She didn't immediately get celebrity from it, but she got entry into some, you know, some agent's offices and things like that. like that. And finally, she was found like a rose. I always think of this, like the ambiguity again of this line, because it's like you're being picked, like you're being chosen.

But also, like, when you pick a rose... What happens to it? It dies. Yes. So, again, the rose is a symbol of ephemeral... Right. The ephemeral

nature of fame. The fact that it simply does not last. nor to our lives. Clara Bo has passed away. Yes. Okay, so I guess I want to go back and say, I love the rhyme of this because it kind of joins both alliteration and assonance.

And you see look like in this light all your life. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like a rose. So she's using a simile there, obviously, but all the L's sort of roll. L's sweet, amiable, pulling, convincing sound. This is good work. Good job poet.

Then we get to the pre-course. I'm not trying to exaggerate. Okay, do you think that is a genuine statement? No. No. Whoever the talent scout is, whatever the agent is, is there to convince you to move forward

in this precarious life of fame. So, yes, they are exaggerating. But I think I might die if it happened. So both she might die if it actually happened. She's been, she wanted all her life to be a movie star. She became not just a movie star. She became probably the greatest movie star of an age for a few years. Die if it happened to me.

No one in my small town thought I'd see the lights of Manhattan. And now I'm hearing echoes of the dam season where she goes back to the small town. Clara, you know, it's funny because Clara Bo was born in an area of Brooklyn. And you think of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York is not a small town. But, you know, the 1910s. It's very different. Right, it was a smaller town environment. It was, she's the girl from nowhere, you know, and she's not going to.

to see it happen. Plus, I'm going to say, I love the rhyme. I like the happen and Manhattan rhyme. Yeah, I just, I love it that it's not exact, but it's really pure for the use of the of the pre-chorus. Yeah, it works. Yeah, I thought so too. You know, what she's describing here is called the American Dream. Right. Oh, I have a couple of Horatio-Alder novels. I probably should have gotten one off the shelf in the back room where I keep the other books. The rest of the books. Not like the ones over here or the ones in the other room, but the other room. So Horatio Alger was an American writer who wrote Rags to Riches Stories.

Okay. And he created the mythology of what we call the American Dream. So if you are, again, from Germany or Malaysia, and you're unfamiliar with the expression, the American Dream. The American dream is that anyone could come to America and through hard work and application, you could become successful. Anything you want to be.

Anything, yeah. A part of that mythology is people saying, you can be anything you want to be. You can, if you try hard and apply yourself, you can be anything. Well, I always wanted to be a center for the Chicago Bulls, and I try hard to grow to seven feet. You got close

Just didn't make it You know I always wanted to play tight end for the Los Angeles Rams I really did growing up I love the tight end position I know somebody else who likes that I know is that crazy Well it's great because you get to you get to block You're usually a big guy You also get to catch passes

Yeah you can still score a touchdown now Right I thought the tight end was great And instead I played left guard You know, we know that the American dream is just that a dream And a lot of writers have written things that show that the American dream often doesn't work Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman, thank you Yeah, so Arthur Miller famously married Marilyn Monroe I know that much Wrote Death of a Salesman in which Willie Lohman literally Lowman Believes that all you have to do is work hard and you can make a success of yourself and Willie

does not and his sons do not either. My favorite anti-American dream book is written by Nathaniel West. He wrote a book called A Cool Million. Okay. And oh, I've got on the shelf back here actually. I don't need to show it to you.

Cool Million is a short novel. It's a novella and it's absolutely hysterical. It is a kind of send-up of Great Gatsby's sort of. So Nathaniel West writes this book about a guy named Lemuel, a really heroic name. I'm sorry to all of those of you who are named Lemuel. It's beautiful. It's a biblical name.

Congratulations. But Lemuel lives next door to a former president of the United States, and he tells Lemuel, you should go to the big city, my boy. You go to the big city and work hard, and you can make your fortune. You could win a cool million. And so Lemuel kisses his girlfriend goodbye and goes to the big city. As soon as he leaves his girlfriend, though, she is captured and send off by white slavers. And then when Lemuel gets to town, he continues to lose body parts in very funny ways.

What? And never gets a cool million. Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, it's a really hilarious. satiric, ironic send-up of the idea of the American dream. So, yeah, if you want to have a fun, read a cool million, short

novel, doesn't take long. You know, she's talking about that American dream when she said, no one in my small town thought I would see the lights of Manhattan. At that time, by the way, a lot of the film industry was based in New York. Yeah. So

she went to New York, but then she went to Los Angeles when it began to move later. The chorus She gets to New York This town is fake You know you warns her This town is fake But you're the real thing

Read the fresh air Through smoke rings This is one of my favorite lines In the work It's fun Yeah I think so too It's like I mean does New York really smell all that good

No no But it's magical there That magical You should have tried it in 1920 Yeah, I'm sure it's way worse. Yeah, not only would the smoke rings be there, but a lot of horse manure, which is essentially what this person is feeding, Clara. So, yeah, the town is fake, but you're the real thing, juxtaposition.

So the breath of the fresh air through the smoke rings, well, you can't breathe fresh air through smoke rings. Right. Take the glory, give everything, which may be the moment. most honest line in this entire first three stances. Fair trade. Right. You're going to become famous, but in order to do so, you've got to lay yourself bare to all kinds of things, to all kinds of levels of exploitation. And in order to take that glory, you have to promise to be dazzling. Is it enough just to be talented? No. You've got to be dazzling. I don't know that

anyone ever said that to John Gilbert, for example. No, probably not. That's reserved, probably just for women. Right. So, again, if you're going back to feminist criticism, you've got to say that a lot of what this poem reveals is the cost to women in terms of revealing their bodies, you know, revealing themselves as women in order to become celebrity. So you can't be celebrity without revealing.

femininity. Right. And it's got to be femininity of a particular type. Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Very, very, very small lane of femininity. You've got to be young, you've got to be kind of ingenue, you've got to be remarkable, you've got to be beautiful like a rose, you've got to be fragile, you've got to be dazzling. I mean, just look at the diction here. And if you look at the diction, even not associated with her, words like exaggerate, you know, and

You notice a number of times he uses light in this light. And then in the pre-chorus, he uses the lights of Manhattan. And then in the chorus, dazzling. Yeah. Right. So you see how light appears again and again. Yeah. It's going to continue throughout the poem.

So this is a level of imagery that Swift builds into her poem to say the spotlight is always on. Always on, yeah. That's right. Okay. So that's Clara Bo. You know, why did she pick Clara Bo? I think it's obvious because Bo kind of fits into that mold of what she's exploring. Exactly, yes.

I can't pass the chorus without noting the rhyme scheme thing, rings, thing, dazzling. So again, you've got that kind of... It's so much rhyme in this one. Yeah. And the same, like it's again and again and again. Because the pitch is the same and the requirements are the same. Yeah. And that's kind of one of the themes of this poem is celebrity will always demand the same elements.

Yeah, because this is taking us through like a hundred years of women. You know, I mean, obviously we're only talking about three of them. But like, you know, in the 1920s to now is 100 years ago. So like it's like this is already kind of the whole of Hollywood or the entertainment industry. Like it didn't exist too much before Claribo, right? No, no, like I said, you know, 1893, the Chicago exhibition, we've got, she appears, I mean, we had the first appearance really of moving pictures that dazzle the public. I mean, there were celebrity of a type, you know. There were famous singers, famous performers.

There were famous sportsmen. But not on this level. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. not on the level where half of America would recognize your face. Right. Verse two.

Yes. So, you know, you notice that the introductory verses to each of our celebrities, including the outro, are all four lines long, and they all have that similitude of rhyme. So, nicks, lips, fingertips, eclipse. Right. So good. So I think it's, it is, you know,

It's not just rhyme for the beauty of rhyme. It has another meaning. And that is, there is a similarity. It is a similitude. There's a constant in the demands of celebrity. Yeah. You look like Stevie Nix. Okay.

So this is my generation, people. I grew up with Stevie Nix. I love Stevie Nix. And Stevie Nix and Taylor are friends. Are they really? Stevie Nix wrote a poem for this album. I did not know. Yeah.

Wow, I'd like to see it. Yeah, we've got to do that. So Taylor wrote one and Stevie Nix wrote one. So we need to look at both of those. Okay, so Stevie Nix was a songwriter, right? I mean, she not only was a singer, performer, but she also wrote many of her own songs. Yeah.

So why does she choose Stevie Nix? Well, she's a performer. She's famous. She has blonde hair. Yeah, yeah. You know, in the next line it says, in 75, the hair and lips, well, what do we talk about when we talk about Taylor Swift, her hair dues, and we talk about her red lips? Yep. Well, Stevie Nix.

Yep. 75, how old was Stevie Nix and 75? Oh, can you say around 16? Was she? Yeah. Yeah, I think she was born in 48, so, I'm sorry, 58, so. So, yeah, right around teenager, at least. Yeah.

She was young. Yeah. She comes through with the Buckingham's. She's, you know, physical attributes are described in the second line. What's one of the important things for women's fame? Yeah. One of the requirements, it's got to be pretty. Yeah.

Yeah. We have to want to look at you. Yeah, we do. You can't be someone we don't want to look at. Yeah. Now, you can be Pavarotti if you're a guy singer. Yeah. But it's very difficult to be someone who doesn't have the hair and lips.

Right. The crowd goes wild at her fingertips. Half moonshine, a full eclipse. Okay. Thank you very much for the ambiguity. Moonshine obviously is an alcoholic beverage. Right. That is homegrown and made.

Yes. And it's also dangerous to drink. and it gets you drunk really fast and hard. So the crowd goes wild because they're drunk on moonshine. Moonshine can also have another meaning. It's literal. So did you ever see Stevie Nix when she performed? Yes.

What does she wear? She wears like witchy, long, flowy things with a tambourine. There were rumors at the time that she was a white witch. Yeah. So she often wore black. And when people asked her, is that because that's witchy? She said, no, it's slimming. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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So I remember that so clearly. I really almost wondered if this was one of the best lines in the pole. Half moonshine, full eclipse. So you have half and full, you know, why a full eclipse? Again, it's ambiguity. You know, she literally wore moon. moons on her black outfit. So a full eclipse is a blackout.

She also had little stars. But also a full eclipse mean lights out. So she sings lights out. So it could be that call to a famous cliche. Okay. Interesting. And that's more about light too. And that's more about light.

And the whole notion of moonshine and eclipse are about light. So you notice how light becomes, it's going to be an image. is going to appear all throughout the poem. Yeah. I do think that Stevie Nix now, I don't know about back then, but I know now that she gives out little moon necklaces to people. Like she's given one to Taylor and she's given one to like the Hymn sisters who was another, they're like a group. And so I think that moon, you know, that moon witchy thing just always is just very Stevie

next to me. Well, Stevie, if you're listening. Yeah, we want moon necklaces. Well, you can't ask like that. Stevie, I'm a lifelong admirer and follower. And, I mean, I'm not asking for a moon necklace. That's too much to ask for. But I don't know if you have any extra lying around in a drawer somewhere.

I'd be happy to pay for the postage. So, yeah, you've got this part witch, part rock star image. Also, you know, moon and stars are celestial. bodies. So, you know, we may be, again, calling attention to her body. Interesting. Okay. Yeah.

You know, again, I'm going to go back and press the question, why Stevie Nix, what other autobiographical elements might match with Taylor's life. I do recall from following Stevie Nix's career, she had a number of boyfriends. Yeah. And that was always kind of the thing, right? That was a thing. Yes, everybody talked about it. With the guy, with the Buckingham, Lindsay Buckingham, right?

Yeah. That was like a whole... Yeah, in 75 she comes up. Or she's with the Buckingham's, you know, and she has this thing with Lindsay Buckingham. And then when she and Lindsay Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, she has this thing with Fleetwood, with Mc Fleetwood. And then, you know, when they're touring and recording and they're in L.A., she meets Don Henley of the Eagles. And she has the thing with Don Henley. and, you know, with the Eagles, she meets Joe Walsh, who was their drummer, and she has a thing with Joe Walsh.

She's just queen of all of it. By the way, if you're going to go with boyfriends. Yeah, those are some. Why don't you pick some that eventually go into the rock and roll hall of fame? Do you realize all four of those guys are in the rock and roll hall of fame? What a queen. Isn't that great? I mean, she went with other people.

I remember when she went with their record producer at one time. By the way, Hall of Fame. But, you know, I don't know. She was constantly going with different boyfriends. So she got this reputation of being sort of the bad girl in constant. I can't remember the guy's name. She did marry a guy at one point. Do you know this story?

No. So she had a best friend. The best friend died, I think, of cancer. and she had a young son at the time, and Stevie Nick said that she would help take care of him, and she decided, well, maybe the best way is to marry the husband, and they would take care of the child together. And I think their marriage lasted about three months.

Yeah, I know. Don't, you know, that's not a good reason to get married, just in case you're listing, you know, you got the do or don't list. Yeah. Yeah, the don't list is because your best friend wanted you to. Not really a lasting set up there. And I believe that was her one marriage. She never had children, you know.

So I think that there are a lot of reasons why, and I didn't know that she was friends with, yeah. Yeah, so we are not going to watch this version of surprise songs, but Stevie Nix did go to a date on the Erez tour, and so Taylor did play Clara Bow as a surprise song that night in front of, Stevie Nix. Wow. Wow. I'd like to see that reaction. Yeah, it was pretty fun. We can find it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of reasons to choose Stevie Nix. Again, a lot of comments being made on the nature of feminine requirements of being a female celebrity and also on the nature of

celebrity at large. And we get the same type of chorus information for poor Stevie. The town is fake, but you're the real thing Coca-Cola a breath of fresh air through the smoke rings you know LA is famous for its smog take the glory give everything you know and that's that's kind of a truism but it's also a sort of

warning for anyone looking for celebrity you have to give everything you have to sell yourself and now you've got to go back to mirror ball right what do you give up when you become celebrity you know the mirror ball itself is hot It's fragmented. It's broken. It's pendulous. It's dangerously suspended on a wire. You know, these are all the things, you know, at what point because you please the crowd, do you lose your authentic self?

Right. Yeah. And we kind of hear that in the latter half of the chorus. The crown is stained, but you're the real queen. You're not going to, you're going to get those stains right off. for there because you're the real thing. Yeah. To wear the crown is difficult. Flesh and blood amongst war machines. So, you know, this is really an interesting warning almost. It reminded me of Faust.

I would say this is Faustian. So if you've ever read Dr. Faustus, you know, Faust wants to be the most learned, most capable intellect in the world, and he sells his soul to the devil. And so this is sort of the bargain. make with the devil for the nature of fame. The crown, there is a stain on it, that you are flesh and blood amongst war machines. It will just grind you up.

Yeah, there's no surviving as a human. Right. Yeah. And also flesh, you know, you've got to remember she's a woman, right? So, again, as a feminist reader, you cannot ignore the fact that we're talking about the body. You know, you've got to be able to literally, to bleed, to put your flesh. on exhibition. Right.

In order to recover the type of fame that's necessary. The war machines. Are you going to do some biographical criticism? I am. So do you remember back in our first episode? This was almost a year ago now. Is this a test? No.

It was my tears ricochet all about her losing her records, like her masters. Yes. And there was a line in it that you didn't like, because you said it was all really pretty and poetic, and then she said something about the battleships will sink beneath the waves. But I was interesting. Yes.

And I was just like, I didn't have any thoughts to that really. And then a lot of people in the comments were like, well, I think battleships is because her record label was literally called Big Machine. Ah. And so that's what I think of whenever I see war machines. It's like she's literally,

she's pulling in that big machine record. that she's like been fighting with this whole time, you know, and makes it into like war machines. There's like non-human entities that you have to be fighting. See, the reason why I said, are you going to give me a biographical, because I have to admit, you know, it is, I'm warming up to this. Okay. Or maybe you guys and all of you guys are having an effect on me because I thought of that too. I thought, oh, the machine is the record company, you know, just grinding it out. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, you switch record company after record company. Where's the right deal? And who's going to steal your stuff? Again, Stevie Nix was a songwriter. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I also wrote a note that a woman has to surrender herself.

She has no privacy, no stability, no humanity. She is just flesh and blood amongst these war machines. Interesting. Yeah. And then she further strips the humanity away in, And what I think is a beautifully ironic turn. You're the new God we're worshipping. Promise to be dazzling.

Can't be good. Got to be beyond great. You've got to be dazzling. You know, she's literally not human. We're worshipping her. She's a god. Yeah. It's dehumanizing in like the opposite way.

But still dehumanizing. Still dehumanizing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, people talk about, I'm sorry. You know, I have seen those articles pop up. You know, is Taylor Swift getting fat?

And I'm going, oh, people, nobody should read this article. And you know how you can, you know, do the thumbs down? I do the thumbs down. It's like, leave me alone. Like, why are we writing about this? Yeah, I don't need to hear about this. I don't know who you are. Oh, fashion magazine.

No, I don't need to, you know. But seriously, they wrote an article about that. Of course, yeah. You know? Yeah, her body has been the subject for probably 15 years. It's like she's a writer and a performer. You got to be naked to do this job. You've got to be perfect looking as well.

You've got to be a god. You know, we only can worship you if you're perfect. Yeah. Yeah. So the bridge. Okay, hold on. We did just skip the pre-chorus on that page, the bottom. Oh, I'm sorry.

But it's the same as the other one except it's all about L.A. instead of Manhattan. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. skip right over that. Yeah, it is about L.A. No one in my small town thought I'd meet these suits in L.A. Which kind of talks about what you were talking about,

where the film stuff kind of started in Manhattan and then made its way to Manhattan. Yeah. So, okay, the bridge is really interesting. It is a dark turn. It certainly is. It's so, it's, I just really like it. Yeah.

Beauty is a beast, and I wrote, is this the best line? beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours. That is a great line. Obviously, it is a metaphor. She is comparing, you know, it is a metaphor with several different meanings. You know, it's literal, but also the requirement that you have to be beautiful is something that can devour you. Right, yeah, like you lose yourself in trying to maintain the same size, not aging, not, you know, you can't like change. You have to stay like looking like a 16 year old for the rest of your life, you know, like all of those things.

And then it's like when you lose that, you lose the attention. Absolutely. You know, so I'm reluctant to name names because I know I'm going to hit on someone's favorite, favorite person, you know, but I'm going to name one. I grew up loving Cher. Okay. Yeah. Right. And her voice, you know, was one of the great voices of the late 60s and 70s.

And Academy Award, you know, for the movie Moonstruck, you know, great work. Amazing performer. Have you seen her lately? You know, but just asking the question, I mean, do you realize how wrong it is? Yeah, like she's allowed to look like an older woman because that's what she is now, you know? You know, and you just, but she doesn't, I mean, she's so cognizant of the fact that beauty is a beast, you know, that she has all kinds of work done, she has all kinds of implants done. And so she's trying to maintain that, I don't know, she's still trying to look forward.

when she is not. Right, right. You know, still an amazing person, still an amazing performer, but so stressed and strained and tortured and twisted by this beast we call fame that she feels required to do that. Right. I think that there is an inherent violence that lies beneath glamour in this poem. Interesting.

Yeah. Because we voluntarily perform acts on our bodies. And I'm going to say women voluntarily perform these acts. You know, I've heard guys complain about it. You know, what's the name of the guy in the Guardians of the Galaxy? Chris Pratt? Chris Pratt, is that his name? I think so, yeah.

I heard him do an NPR interview. Yeah, because he used to be like a chubby guy. Now he's like a Marvel star. That's right. When he was on TV, he was kind of chubby. And he talked, they asked him, you know, what's his? his regimen. And he said for several months before shooting one of those films, he has to go and work out.

And it's eight hours a day working out. And he said he absolutely hates it. Yeah, and just like eating chicken. Yes, he eats nothing but protein and he works out four hours and then he takes a break and then he works out four hours. And he said it is just grueling, horrible and he is so glad when it's done. Well, that's what men have to do. What do do do, you know, they have to often alter their bodies. surgically. You know, you've got to be bigger, you've got to be prettier.

Yeah. You've got to look younger. You've got to look younger. You've got to get that facelift. Absolutely. Got to have the right color hair. You know, I think about, I'm going to go back to Clara Bo, you know, in her time period, those sunken cheeks were a real mark of beauty. And so people like Greta Garbo would have teeth pulled. You know this is a thing again. This is a thing again. This is a thing again. The sunken cheeks. Is it? The sunken cheese? Yeah, there's a fat pad here called your buckle fat. Oh, yeah.

And everybody's getting that removed. Not everybody, Angela. No, I know. But like so many women have had this surgery, and I think it makes you look like you're ill. Yeah. I mean, that is the beauty that is a beast. Yes. Now, we also have, by the way, an allusion to beauty and the beast.

Yes. Right. which is kind of fun. Yes, the great. But the beast is also, it's the public, right? Because the public feeds on our image. It feeds on how we look. And so the public is down on all fours, roaring, demanding more.

So demanding not just that Stevie Nix has to look young, young, young all the time, seductive all the time, in her, you know, Renaissance black witchy outfit. You know, Fleetwood himself, the drummer used to wear those Renaissancey outfits. As a matter of fact, on their most famous album, Rumors, you know, he's very famously posing with one of those pirate shirts. So they, you know, it is a kind of devouring beast that feeds. The public wants beauty and it wants novelty and it wants celebrity. and we have to be perfect and on all the time. And my oh my, that can't be, it can't be a result in any pressure, can't it?

Yeah, the nature of beauty is always predatory. It's consuming. For sure. Only when your girlish glow flickers just so, again, flickering, a reference to light. You notice how light appears in every stanza. Interesting, yeah, and your girlish glow, that's also, your glow is flickering. That's your light, yeah. And notice how youth plays into it.

We don't want old stars. No, no. Don't give me, well, I mean, except for Meryl Streep. But even Meryl Streep has complained about being limited to enrolls. Yeah, you get pigeonholed. You know, you're the older star now. Yeah, where's Chris Pratt going to be in 30 years? Still probably an Avenger of some kind.

Yeah, he's going to be the old one. Do they let you know it's hell on? earth to be heavenly. Paradoxical statement. Yes. And one of the better lines, it's hell on earth to be heavenly. Also poetically pretty. You notice the H's.

Yes. So we have alliteration going, them's the breaks. It's like it's so not concerned with them as human beings. Yeah, it's like, well, this is just how it is. So. Yeah. You know, this is just, you know, they don't come gently. And then the outro.

Yes. You look like Taylor Swift In this light, we're loving it You got Edge, she never did The Future's Bright, dazzling Swift, it did dazzling You know, it's got that wonderful ironic twist where

You know Taylor Swift realizes that she Again like Miraball, she's very Self-aware Yes So she realizes she has now been canonized. I am the great star, right?

I am on top. I am the billionaires whose every album breaks records. Right. It will not last. Yeah, and they're already trying to replace me. That's right. So you know what I did. What?

I went on Google AI. Okay. And I typed in, I asked, oh, I shouldn't let you see this. Stop it. Okay. It's a quiz. Are you going to ask me who the Tatea daughters are?

I asked. Who is the next Taylor Swift? Yeah, I can name like seven. It gave me four. Okay, let me guess. I could guess two of them. Okay. We're going to go first Olivia Rodriguez.

That was their number one. Okay, and then we're going to go Sabrina Carpenter. That was their number two. And then we're going to go Gracie Abrams. That was their number three. Okay, and then number four. Who's number four? Is it Maisie?

No? No. Is it still a girl? Yes. Of course. Okay. Who am I forgetting? You know who it's not, and I found this interesting.

Okay. It's not Billy Elish. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah, because Billy Elish does not fit that mode. No, she does not. She says, you know, screw you. If you can't take my body image, I don't need to show you.

Yeah. She wears oversized clothing. Yeah. You know, she's... Guys her hair like green and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. She says, you want me to be blonde and curly?

Uh-uh. Yeah. Who's the fourth? Chapel Rowan. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, and I would say all, except for Gracie, those other three, especially, Olivia was kind of the first one that broke out. And she definitely is, like, edgier. Like, she's like, you know, the cooler girl, whereas Taylor has never been, like, the cool girl.

And that's Olivia is who I think of instantly whenever I hear this last stanza. You know, the only two that I knew. of were Olivia Rodriguez and Sabrina Carpenter. Like I said, I would guess too. I guess them. Gracie Adams, I have to admit, I did not know. Gracie Abrams. She is actually JJ Abrams's daughter.

Is she really? Yes. Oh, I know JJ Abrams. Star Trek. Yeah. Okay. I really love her. Actually, she...

Wow, talk about labeling myself. Wow. Okay. She actually opened on the Eros tour as well. So did Sabrina. but she opened for one of my shows. And that was the first time I had seen her live. And I knew her a little bit.

And I, like, really liked her. And Chase was there that night. And then now Chase is, like, very much in his Gracie era. And he loves Gracie Abrams right now. Chase, you got to come on the show and defend yourself. But she, her and Taylor have, they wrote a song together that's on Gracie's last album. That's really good. Wow.

But yeah, I agree with all of these. Chapel is like a little bit less, but she does, all of these Gen Z songwriters that are coming up, like they learned from Taylor, you know, and they'll tell you that. Like they learned how to write songs and how to be confessional and, you know, why it's important to write your own music and all of that. Right. Yeah. You know, to a, I know they shouldn't care, but to a certain extent don't all celebrities kind of look over their shoulder. and wonder who's coming up? Yeah. Taylor has another song that she actually wrote when she was like 22, I think.

And it was written for the red album. It didn't make the red album. But when we got read Taylor's version, it was one of the vault tracks. And it's called Nothing New. And it's about this whole concept, basically. Like she was already feeling at 22 years old, like somebody's coming to replace me, which is an insane thing to think, that young of an age. But she has a line in there that says, you'll ask her how she got here or something, and

she'll say she got the map from me. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it happens everywhere, you know, like in the world of sports back in the heyday when, I don't know, in basketball, for example, when Michael Jordan was number one. And people were constantly asking, who's the next Michael Jordan, you know, who's going to be?

wear that crown, you know, and we've had two or three since then, and Michael Jordan was just one in a line, too. Right. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I'm young enough to remember Joe Montana in, you know, in his career, and everyone was wondering, oh, who's the next Joe Montana, you know, or in the world of soccer, you know, you had Maradonna, and then you had Pele, and then who's the next Pele? And Leo Messi comes up, and now Leo Messi is. Now who's the next to him? Yeah, he's in the twilight, and is it going to be? soccer you know i don't know for you for you football enthusiasts yeah who's it going to be you know i don't know i think yeah i don't think anybody gets to escape no you don't escape

time or um you know it what's what's apparent in here isn't just the loss of talent it's the loss of good looks you know um and i think that shining light that that that you know it's you know looks upon us is something that is omnipresent in this poem. Interesting. Yeah. I think this is, I wrote a little note simultaneously a tribute. Okay. It's a tribute to Clara Bow and to Stevie Nix, a tribute to their wonderful celebrity and what they did.

Agree. It is a warning. Agree, yeah. On the cost of celebrity, on the fleeting nature of celebrity. It is a confession. Okay. Because Taylor Swift is confessing, you know, I know where I come from, and I, I know where I will go.

You know, I would imagine that before the song, there were an awful lot of people who did not know who Clara Bo was. I didn't, yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, and this stuns me, Stevie Nix. Right, right, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and it's funny because, you know, I recently heard a little discussion on NPR with Paul McCartney's new album. And someone asked, they did a poll on who Paul McCartney was.

and people in this latest generation, you know, a lot of them say, wasn't he a member of wings? Oh, dear. Yeah, I know. You know, that is the nature of fame. Losing the ancient texts. And I think that this is essentially a confession by Taylor Swift that she understands that time will relegate her to a position.

And because of that, I think it may also be a kind of epitaph. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And she's not done yet. No, but... She's not, but she knows there will be a day when she is. Yeah.

Yeah. And I had stuff on themes and other things that are relative, and I also need to review my notes because, like the other song... He's got typed notes. I typed up five pages of notes. I just couldn't stop, you know, the stuff that it says, oh, I didn't even mention the religious imagery, you know, the fact that your God and we're worshipping.

Yeah, and heavenly. Yeah, and heavenly. Fame becomes a secular religion. Celebrity creates idols and we worship them intensely and then we replace them. They just discard them. Yeah. Yeah, so lots of interesting, you know, religious imagery. It also says fame is cyclical.

Femininity is co-modified. You know, femininity is. you're required to be in a certain frame. Artistic women are mythologized and dehumanized. Interesting. Yeah, I loved that. I'm sorry, I love what I wrote. I love my own words.

No, that is really, that is really, say it again. Yeah, that artistic women are mythologized and dehumanized. Yeah, absolutely. And that every new icon is based on the remains of previous ones. Oh, I know. I know that's a great image, isn't it? Yeah. It's a little dark.

But I'm telling you, she turns dark in the bridge. She does. She does. She does. It's going to eat you up and spit you out. You're going to be gone and someone else is going to be jump up on your remains. Yeah, we're just going to slot them right in there and we won't even miss you. So I want to talk a little bit about the themes, but shall we do that now?

Sure. Okay. Well, I mean, it's all about the preservation of glory. How does glory look? How does fame work? It's on the transience of youth and the transients of fame. Obviously, there is a feminine theme about the requirements of women in answering the call of fame. You know, that women have to fit a particular mode and there's a particular price to pay.

Right. And it's on the ephemeral nature of fame. Fame is simply not lasting. I did think about a poem by A.E. Hausman. Okay. It's to an athlete dying young. So it's about this young athlete who wins the race, and he is chaired through the town.

They put him on the chair, they march him through the town, and everybody celebrates him, but it says, early though the laurel grows, it withers quicker than a rose. Yeah, that, you know, you may look great right now, look great right now. You've got that laurel wreath on your head

because you won. You're the best. You're the top. You're above us all like turning on tiptoes in high heels. Yeah. Yeah. But tomorrow, you're a dead to me. And he even suggests

into an athlete dying young that maybe dying young at the top of your career is the happiest thing that could happen. Oh, geez. I know. That's a dark moment, isn't it? Which is like a thing that happens all the time, like all those, you know, like all those rock stars that would die at like 27 or whatever. Yeah, I mean, you think about Janice Joplin or Jimmy Hendricks, you know, whose legendary status is achieved in some small measure because they died when they were at the top of their careers.

Yeah, Kurt Cobain. Kurt Cobain, yeah. What would have happened to Janice Joplin and that wonderful Rusty voice, the wonderful bluesy sound if she had lived to be 80. Right. We just have been like, we're not paying attention to her anymore, because she's not pretty. Yeah, that poor old lady, what happened to her voice? Yeah. Or,

I mean, Jimmy Hendricks. I have a couple of other short poems I want to read to you, but let's save those until after we hear this song that is clearly going to make use of the SciSura in the opening versus by going, you look like Clara Beau.

Okay. In this light, remarkable. This is crazy. Okay, so we are going to watch the lyric video. And then we are going to watch a different time, not in front of Stevie Nix, where she played this as a surprise song,

but it is mashed up with Mirabal. Oh, well, of course it is. Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Good. Yeah. I'm so happy you gave them to me together.

Me too. Well. Okay. Okay. What are your thoughts? You know what? You know, I said that Mirabal wasn't my favorite as a song, but that I loved it as a poem. Mm-hmm.

I almost thought it was better as a song mixed with. Yeah, it was very fun. And just with the guitar. Yeah. She did a little bit extra in there with her voice and stuff. Yeah. It's very fun and does together. only seen that one time like two years ago.

She was trying to show us the emotional impact of it. I'm sure it was very difficult to do that in a theatrical setting like in the circus, as she says in Mirabal of a performance. Okay, so I said I wanted to read some more

poetry. Yes. If you guys will indulge me, I thought about different poems about fame. And I just want to read, maybe just three. So John Clare is a British Victorian. I love John Clare.

I think he is much underrated. He wrote a poem titled Idol Fame. He says, I would not wish the burning blaze of fame. You see the use of light? Yeah, it's blazing. Yeah, I do not wish the burning blaze of fame around a restless world, the thunder and the storm of praise. You know, everyone loves you for the moment.

in crowded tumults heard and hurled. So they hurl their praise at you. I would not be a flower, maybe like a rose, to stand the stair of every passerby, but in some nook of fairyland seen in the praise of beauty's eye. Interesting. You saying hurling or him saying hurling makes me think of how you are saying that it's violent.

It is. The beast of beauty is a violent. and perpetrated on women that they have to look a certain way. And he says, you know, he'd rather be just a flower in a nook of fairyland trying to capture beauty in a poem than to be famous. And I mentioned Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson has half a dozen poems on fame, but I have two that are my favorite. Number 1658.

They're enumerated in her new collection of poetry. her complete poems of Emily Dickinson, of course. And so here is, fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate whose table wants a guest but not the second time is set. So you're only a guest at the table

of fame. Well, you get one chance. You get one shot. Whose crumbs the crows inspect and with ironic craw call flat past it to the farmer's corn. Men eat of it and die. I just love it.

Oh, my goodness. Yes. Incredible. And lastly, number 1763. Okay. Very short, but maybe my favorite. Fame is a bee. Okay, metaphor.

Okay, yeah. It has a song. You hear bees buzzing as they flow. It has a sting. It can be painful. It can bite. Ah, too. It has a wing.

It'll fly away. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's like, it's a song, and then it hurts you, and then it's gone. And then it's gone. Wow. And that's a four-line rendition of Clara Bow. It certainly is. Yeah.

So I had to think of that short, short poem. Yeah, those are fun to go along with this. It has a song, it has a sting. and it has a wing. Interesting. Yeah, it's great. It's also just interesting that it's been, you know, a couple hundred years and it's, nothing's changed. Only 150.

Okay. Fine. But like, right? Like, that it's just nothing has changed in all those decades, you know? Right. Yeah, so, all right, fans. This is just your Uncle Jerry talking to you. Before you demand more.

and more and more of Taylor Swift. Before you make prognostications on, oh, marriage will ruin here, oh, you know, this love thing is going to thwart her songwriting abilities. Before you look at her and say, is she putting on weight? Before you look at her and say, oh, I think I see more wrinkles in her forehead. Leave her the hell alone.

Just go back and put on weight. one of her records and enjoy her for the artist she is, was, and always will be. Yes. That's it. Yes. That's my final word. Exactly. Okay.

You ready to grade? Clarabo. I am, yeah. Okay. Clara Bow, Tortured Poets Department. Lyrical strength. Very poetic. Lyrical strength.

I just loved this one. I loved the similitude of rhyme that is not just rhyme. but symbolic of the voice. Oh, and I did want to say something I said during listening to the songs. I wonder, I still wonder about who the speaker is. It feels like a talent scout, it feels like an agent. It feels like it might be Taylor Swift herself, but it also feels like the voice of fame,

like fame personified. Yeah. Right. Yeah, much like the mirror ball kind of was personified. Yeah, so the mirror ball is speaking in one. Here fame is speaking. Fame comes to her and says, you know, You know, oh, you want to be famous?

You told your mom you want to be a movie star? I'll tell you what, you know. And fame goes to Stevie Nix and says, oh, you've been singing since someone handed you a guitar. Oh, you told your parents you wanted to be a singer. Oh, you left home early just to be with the Buckingham's. Well, I'll tell you what. And then Taylor Swift. Yeah.

Taylor, you know, I once spoke to you. But your time's past. See you later. Hey, Penelope You know, it feels like it's the voice of fame Yeah, I like that. I like that interpretation. So your question was, lyrical strength?

Yes. I'm going to say, this is one of the best. Okay. Yeah. So I don't know what you think of the song. It's a little funny that it's even named Clarabo. You know, it feels like it should be named something like fickle fate. You know, something better than that.

You know what I mean. So I'm going to say 100. Oh, my goodness. I know. Should we tell them that before this, I said that I thought you would like clear a book because you like when she writes about old things. Can you believe that? She said, I thought you liked this because you like old things.

And structure. I think Leslie might take offense at that. I'm just saying you like when Taylor writes about old things. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think my words in my mouth.

Okay. Yeah. I think my hairline might take offense at that too. Okay. I'm being self-effacing. What's next? Narrative and structure. Structure.

Man. I'm going to say, I don't know if she could have picked better people. You know, Clara Boe. So, art typo of the 1920s silent film era. Stevie Nix. art typal of that 70s song movement, a songwriter herself, you know, different from and yet similar to inner fame. I'm saying things I've already said. Yeah, I loved the choices. Me too. So I'm going to say 100. Oh my gosh. I don't know any other way to put it.

What is happening? Production and atmosphere. I thought the song was good, you know, didn't kill me, didn't blow me away. I liked the live performance. I loved the orthography. I liked the way that the letters were set on the screen. In the lyric video. I loved it that that one verse goes down her back. And it's like, what are you doing to her body? And she, she recognizes it. You know, she recognizes it that every time she gets on stage, a lot of people are going up and down her body. You know, she couldn't even have to be singing. Right. I'm going to say 95. It was a good song.

Okay. Lur and literary references. Did I say that I don't, not a lot of literary references, but the allusions to celebrities of the past. Yes, you're going to say lots of lore. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I thought they were perfect. I'm going to say 100 again.

Oh. I just, yeah. And emotional impact. You know, I did. So I'm going to pause and editorialize for a moment. I was listening to NPR again. For those of you not in country, NPR National Public Radio is the public radio of America. It is publicly funded and an independent news agency that is renowned for its ability to seek truth and facts as best as they can discover it.

Yes. And they have very interesting authors, philosophers, theologians, all kinds of people on. And I heard this one author on talking about the nature of fame and celebrity just this week. Okay. And I thought of this poem. And she talked about what she describes as the democratization of celebrity. And she also referenced a book titled Q the Sun, which is now in my Amazon. to purchase list.

It's based on a quote from the Truman Show where the director's name is Christoff. He's a god figure, hence Christoff, sort of Christ. And he's looking for true man and he says,

Q, the Sun, he's in control of the universe. And she says that there's something emerging called the democratization of celebrity whereby anyone can become a celebrity at any moment because of things like viral TikTok. Yeah. And I thought about us.

Uh-huh. I mean, here we are, British these little podcasts, entirely your suggestion, you know. I'm having fun with it because I get to talk about literature, and I'm very pleased

that some of you are using it to teach others, literary terms and ideas. I can't tell you how that thrills me. It really does. Yeah. But I have to admit that I look at the numbers, you know,

we're approaching 14,000 members. is on YouTube, 32,000 on Insta, you know, it's, there is a level of, I wouldn't call it celebrity for us, maybe, but, but we are creating a community. I know the Patreon, the Patreon folks constantly talking about our community, and I do feel like it's a community. Like, several of them, I know their names. I know their kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah, you start putting like names with certain people and faces and even though, We may not even see their real face in their picture or whatever, but, like, there's something there, you know, that, like,

it's, like, attached to that person. Well, in many cases, I know where they live, you know. I don't mean their home address. I'm not a stalker. I'm not weird. We're finding all of your home addresses. But, you know, a town, you know, we live in Manchester. We live in Amstead, you know.

I just, you know, I live in Argentina. I just, you know, it's like I'd like to have a family reunion. Right, right. You know, there is a, it is interesting how what is, what celebrity is becoming through media. Yeah, it becomes these like, because of the internet and because of the democratization of it, it, you, you get these little, like, niche communities. Right. Well, and I think about our two Australian ladies who are the reactors.

Chats and Reacts. Yeah. And I think you've even linked them or something. I don't know. They appear on my Instagram. Yeah, we've, we've chatted. Okay, so, I mean, yeah, they have a huge community, right? They even go on tour, you know, and what are they?

They're just ladies who talk about Taylor Swift. Yeah. And, you know, they're very engaging. Yeah, and they've done the same thing. They've built a little community and they've, you know, because of their, their, I mean, I guess it's just based on their personalities, like they're fun to watch, you know. They're fun to watch, react to things and, like, be excited about. Yeah, I don't know.

I was just, I was very contemplative this week, especially after the NPR article with the author who had written about it, you know, about what is fame, what is celebrity, how has it developed? They talked about the Kardashians, again, who have no particular talent except that they have exaggerated body parts. And, you know, but the author said that she had actually studied the Kardashians and she showed how they would take. selfies and they would take selfies over and over and over and over again until they get the perfect one to post. And one of the reasons why so many people find them engaging is that they're good at what they do. Yeah, because they take those selfies and the right angle and then they added them and then they put them up and then we're like, oh, they're just perfect.

Right. Yeah. And, you know, so despite what I may personally feel about the Kardashians or, you know, my express lack of interest in them. Nevertheless, I can acknowledge that they must have a particular skill. You know, and so it did make me think about Taylor Swift and other artists. It did make me wonder about the end of her career. There will be an end.

You know, it did make me wonder about the transitory nature of both life and celebrity. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Thank you for listening. That's my Jerry's momentary aside. So because you've got all of that, what are you going to give emotional impact? Because that feels pretty emotional.

Yeah, I was, you know, and I'm not emotional for me or for like us and our celebrity. Do we have a celebrity? Because we have a very relatively smaller group that we would call celebrity. Absolutely. But nevertheless, I do, I have been garnering greater joy, especially out of our immediate community where we exchange ideas. And I keep bringing Vivian's name, but people like her who engage at a high level and occasionally chastised me. Thank you. I mean, I really, no, I'm serious.

I like it. She was like, I'll respectfully disagree. But the exchange of ideas is what's more important than any one person's opinion, right? It is that exchange of ideas that is a great beauty to me. So I appreciate it. So, yeah, I have to give it 100. That was a long, long grading session, wasn't it? Goodness, it was.

That is a 99. Well, there you go. Wow. Claire Bow. Yeah, who knew? I told Leslie I was loving these songs, and I kept going back over, since you gave them to me just before you left on your trip, you know, I kept going over and over and over them. And coming back to them, I got more and more appreciative of what they are.

Yeah, sometimes things just have to grow a little, you know? And hey, can I just say anyone, any one of those detractors, you know, because someone mentions some guy, and I will tell you, I looked him up, and he said, she's not a poet, and she's not, and I'm thinking, dude, have you seen these two poems? You know, I don't know who you are, and I don't know where you teach English, but I did it for more than 40 years, and I'm telling you, these two will stand up. These two works. So, there you go. That's my pedestal, and now I'm getting good. Back down. Okay.

99 for Claire Bow. Anything else? I'm done. Okay. Well, make sure you join our niche online community. They are great. It's fun. Yeah, it's very, we're having a lot of fun in the comments on YouTube and Spotify,

but also on Patreon. So join us over there if you've got a spare $5 a month. We're having a lot of fun. And make sure you're subscribed and you leave us a review. you listen, you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Swiftie and Scholar Pod. You can follow Uncle Jerry at Dr. Uncle Jerry on

Instagram, and you can follow me on Instagram at Angela Wyatt McDowell. Thank you all. And we will see you next time for another song. Poem. Poem. Bye.