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

As if 31 tracks and more lyrical burns than an emergency room waiting room on the Fourth of July wasn’t enough to work with, Taylor Swift’s new double album The Tortured Poets Department also features an original poem penned by none other than Stevie Nicks.

Physical copies of the album feature a poem by the Fleetwood Mac icon, which lacks a title apart 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 matter of the album, is about heartbreak and the end of a relationship.

He was in love with her

Or at least she thought so

She was broken hearted

Maybe he was too

Neither of them knew.

She was way too hot to handle

He was way too high to try

He couldn’t even see her

He wouldn’t open his eyes

She was on her way to the stars

He didn’t say goodbye 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. He really can’t answer her

He’s afraid of her

He’s hiding from her

And he knows — that he’s

hurting her

She tells the truth

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 can stop her She was just flying

Thru the clouds

Where he saw her …

She was just making her way —

to the stars —

When he lost her …

Nicks and Swift are no strangers: They’ve performed together, have vocally been fans of one another, and have been compared to one another—the latest comparison coming from Swift herself on the TTPD track “Clara Bow.”

The song is about that quintessential idea of “making it” and becoming the “It Girl.” (Bow, a silent film star, is considered to have pioneered the archetype.) “You look like 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 final lines invoking Swift’s name, looking into a future where she’s just another icon of the past. “You look like Taylor Swift / In this light / We’re loving it. / You’ve got an edge she never did, / The future’s bright / …Dazzling.”

Nicks has also praised Swift through the years, and in October 2023 thanked her onstage for writing the Midnights track “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” invoking the song as an example of how she felt about bandmate Christine McVie, who died in 2022, and why she couldn’t see Fleetwood Mac touring again without McVie.

“That was Christine and I. We were on our own in that band. We always were. We protected each other,” she said. “Who am I going to look over to on the right and have them not be there behind that Hammond organ? When she died, I figured we really can’t go any further with this. There’s no reason to.”