Is Clara Bow about Olivia Rodrigo?
I would like to start out by saying I’m not trying to stir up drama. I’m a fan of both Olivia and Taylor. I’m just analyzing songs here. Listening to Clara Bow this morning, it dawned on me that the line “You look like Taylor Swift in this light. We’re loving it. You’ve got edge she never did. Your futures bright. Dazzling.” could be directed at Olivia. Given the context of the song, it's obviously about a young woman coming up in the music industry that Taylor sees a lot of herself in. The question is whether she was thinking about someone specific when she wrote the line or if it's simply about a generic/hypothetical young entertainer.
This line makes Clara Bow so interesting to me, whether it's about someone specific or not, because it's almost like a grown up and matured take on the subject of Nothing New. In Nothing New, 22 year old Taylor is insecure about her place in the music industry and fearful of a younger face coming up and taking her spotlight. In Clara Bow, she’s older, much more confident, secure in her legacy, and accepting of the inevitability of a younger star rising.
Lover was a successful album by normal standards, but it was a commercial decline by Taylor Swift standards. Then there’s the Miss Americana documentary where Taylor says “This is probably one of my last opportunities as an artist to grasp on to that kind of success.” and alludes to fearing entering her 30s because women in the industry get “discarded” by that decade. When we put Folklore in this context, her dramatic pivot and reinvention in 2020 makes more sense. A song like Mirrorball is particularly relevant.
Another important detail about Taylor's life during this time period is her master recordings dispute. In 2020, Taylor was heartbroken over losing control of her master recordings. She planned to make re-recordings of her older albums to try to take control of the situation, and she did so very publicly, even advocating for younger artists to negotiate more favorable contracts with their record labels.
Then, Olivia Rodrigo came onto the scene. She released the biggest streaming album of the year, clearly heavily inspired by Taylor. Not to mention, she negotiated a favorable contract with her record label in which she got to own all her masters.
I wonder if in 2021, Taylor watched Olivia’s career skyrocket and thought to herself that the girl she imagined in Nothing New was finally presenting herself. The line “She'll know the way, and then she'll say she got the map from me. I'll say I'm happy for her, then I'll cry myself to sleep.” is uncanny. It’s plausible that she felt somewhat threatened by Olivia in 2021, leading her to ask for credit on Deja Vu, and whatever else may or may not have occurred behind the scenes leading to Olivia almost never speaking publicly about Taylor ever again and not ever attending the Eras Tour.
We all know Taylor would go on to enjoy unprecedented levels of commercial success in the years following 2021, proving her theory in the Miss Americana documentary wrong. We also know that Taylor has kept an eye on Olivia. I think Imgonnagetyouback’s striking lyrical similarities to Olivia’s Get Him Back! are on purpose. I just don’t know whether that's flattering or not. But either way, I’m convinced Olivia was still very much on Taylor’s radar during the TTPD writing sessions. And that is why I’m also convinced that the last line in Clara Bow is a polite nod to Olivia Rodrigo. And it makes the song really special to me as a huge fan of both artists.