Taylor Swift’s History With ‘Hero’ Stevie Nicks: From Grammys Performance to ‘Clara Bow’
Taylor Swift's admiration for Stevie Nicks began long before her name-drop on The Tortured Poets Department.
The musicians' history dates back to 2010 when they took the stage together at the 52nd annual Grammy Awards. Following their performance of "Today Was a Fairytale," "Rhiannon" and "You Belong With Me," Nicks praised Swift's "childlike nature" in the 2010 TIME 100 issue.
"It's an innocence that's so special and so rare," Nicks wrote. "This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John. She sings, she writes, she performs, she plays great guitar. Taylor can do ballads that could be considered pop or rock and then switch back into country. When I turned 20 years old, I had just made the serious decision to never be a dental assistant. Taylor just turned 20, and she's won four Grammys."
Nicks celebrated Swift's ability to write songs "for the universal woman and for the man who wants to know her," adding, "The female rock 'n' roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it's women like her who are going to save the music business."
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More than a decade later, the Fleetwood Mac icon looked back on her storied career and the lessons she hoped to impart on younger artists like Swift.
"I never don't tell the truth. And I think that's something that if Taylor Swift, who is my friend, if Taylor got anything from me, that's what she got," she said in an interview with Today.com. "I don't ever lie in my songs — if you broke up with me, I don't put I broke up with you. I tell the truth, always."
Scroll down for a look back at Swift's connection with Nicks through the years:
2010
The twosome performed together at the Grammy Awards, and Nicks admitted to feeling hesitant about the collab at first. "She's 20 years old, 5 ft. 11 in. and slender; I'm 40 years older and, to be frank, neither of the other two things! I was not about to stand next to this girl on national television," she wrote in an excerpt for the 2010 TIME 100. "But her little face just lights up like a star, and I couldn't say no."
2014
Nicks spoke candidly about taking young female artists under her wing, telling HuffPost, "They know they can call me. I'm never far away."
She added, "I like to say a fairy godmother as opposed to a mom because I don't become their moms. They have moms. They don't need another mom, but maybe they need a fairy godmother."
2020
Nicks admitted to not being a fan of social media, name-dropping Swift in her explanation. "I'm not really on the internet. ... Taylor Swift talks about all the haters and it's too much for me," she told Vogue. "I'm afraid anything I say people will take wrong and I just can't deal with that."
2023
Less than one year after the death of her bandmate Christine McVie in November 2022, Nicks told fans that Swift's song "You're on Your Own, Kid" from her album Midnights helped her grieve.
"That is the sadness of how I feel," she said on stage in Atlanta in May, noting that she and McVie "never" had an argument in more than 40 years of friendship. "When it was the two of us, 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."
2024
When Swift released TTPD in April — which features a shout-out to Nicks on the song "Clara Bow" — fans found a poem written by Nicks included in the CD and vinyl editions. "For T and me..." she dedicated the excerpt.
"He was in love with her / Or at least she thought so / She was brokenhearted / Maybe he was too," the poem began. "Neither of them knew / She was way too hot to handle / He was way too high to try / He couldn't even see her."
Referring to a relationship that was "almost a tragedy," Nicks continued, "He really can't answer her / He's afraid of her / He's hiding from her / And he knows that he's hurting her."
Weeks after the album's debut, Nicks was spotted wearing a TTPD bracelet at the BottleRock Napa Valley music festival in California.
2024
Nicks cheered on Swift from the VIP tent at her third Eras Tour concert in Dublin in June. During the acoustic portion of the show, Swift played "Clara Bow" live for the first time.
"I've never played this song live at all and the reason I want to play this tonight is because a friend of mine is here, who is watching the show and has really been one of the reasons why I or any female artist gets to do what we do," she said before performing a mashup of the TTPD song and "The Lucky One" from her album Red. "She paved the way for us."
Swift praised Nicks' "rare" support for younger women in the industry, noting, "She's a hero of mine and also someone I could tell her any secret [and] she'd never tell anybody. She's really helped me through so much over the years. I'm talking about Stevie Nicks."
