The Lucky One
- Clara Bow / The Lucky One (Eras Tour, Dublin)
Bittersweet business: the cautionary tale of fame achieved and then deliberately abandoned. The industry figured as a trap as much as a dream, the 'lucky one' who got out, whose escape is both celebrated and mourned. Connects to Nothing New and Clara Bow as part of the fame-cycle cluster.
“Now it's big black cars and Riviera views”
“Now it's big black cars and Riviera views”
“Another name goes up in lights like diamonds in the sky”
“Chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square”
replaced by the next young thing
“And all the young things line up to take your place Another name goes up in lights”
“Only when your girlish glow flickers just so” — Clara Bow
Community readers hear The Lucky One as Clara Bow's precursor in the catalogue: 'all the young things line up to take your place / another name goes up in lights' stages the same revolving door of disposable stardom, written more than a decade earlier. Clara Bow names the women in the cycle; The Lucky One keeps them anonymous, but the machinery (youth lined up, names in lights, the star used and replaced) is the same.