We delve into the life of the silent film star whose name is the title of a song on the musician’s forthcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Taylor Swift dropped the tracklist for her upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Monday night, launching a wave of speculation about the record’s themes. The final track, titled simply “Clara Bow,” sent the internet down a rabbit hole about the song’s potential meaning.

Swift is no stranger to references to Old Hollywood in her work, including the mid-century aesthetic of the “Wildest Dreams” music video and her use of the lyric, “Burton to this Taylor” on “Ready For It,” in reference to the romance of stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. But this is the first time Swift has used a classic film star as the title of a song.

Clara Bow; Taylor Swift.JOHN KOBAL FOUNDATION/GETTY; JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC

So, who is Clara Bow anyway?

She was one of the biggest stars of the silent era, defining the 1920s flapper image alongside the likes of Louise Brooks and Joan Crawford. Though perhaps no one personified the Roaring Twenties quite like Bow with her close-cropped short hair, her cupid’s bow red-lipped mouth, and her penchant for playing emancipated women. To this day, Bow is considered an icon of sexual freedom for women. But there’s much more behind that party girl image.

Clara Bow.JOHN KOBAL FOUNDATION/GETTY

Born July 29, 1905, Bow had a difficult childhood growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her mother suffered from mental illness and was eventually institutionalized, leaving Bow prey to her abusive father. She got her start as an actress competing in a nationwide acting competition, Brewster Publications’ annual “Fame and Fortune contest.” After winning, Bow sought out screen work in New York before moving to Hollywood in 1923.

It was there that her screen career truly exploded, as well as her reputation. She later described herself as “running wild” during this period of her life. In addition to her abundant sex appeal — which is sometimes credited as inspiration for the look and persona of cartoon Betty Boop — Bow was known for bucking convention, often subverting gender conventions in her roles and using her sexuality to craft her public image.

Though she did successfully make the transition to “talkies,” Bow’s greatest impact was as a silent film star. Her sex appeal often overshadows her talent as an actress, particularly because many of her early dramatic roles came in films that are now lost. But Bow was an adept and naturalistic actor, able to cry at the drop of a hat (it is this skill which purportedly landed her a contract with Preferred Pictures after one meeting with executive B.P. Schulberg).

Clara Bow in ‘Wings’.DONALDSON COLLECTION/GETTY

Over the course of her career, Bow made 46 silent films and 11 talking pictures, but it was It in 1927 that launched her to superstardom. The film stars Bow as shopgirl Betty Lou, who schemes to win the heart of her employer, Cyrus Waltham Jr. (Antonio Moreno). It was this film that led audiences to dub Bow, “the ‘It’ Girl,” a colloquialism that came to be a label for the girl of the moment, one whose magnetic charms and undeniable sex appeal make them the toast of the town.

The same year Bow also starred in Wings, in which she plays “girl next door” Mary Preston, caught in a love triangle between two World War I pilots. The film is notable for being the first to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Following the success of It and Wings, Bow became the number one box office draw of 1928 and 1929.

Clara Bow in ‘It’.EVERETT

But Bow’s success also came with a dark side, leading biographers and gossip columnists to spin unfounded rumors about her, fed by cinematic images of her dancing on tables and drinking to excess. Many of her contemporaries wrote of her living as if there was no tomorrow, and Bow, in turn, called much of the Hollywood elite snobs who viewed her as a “freak” for daring to be unapologetically herself.

Her personal life became tabloid fodder in 1928 when infamous reporter Adela Rogers St. Johns ran an interview with Bow in Photoplay that she wrote as a first-person account of Bow’s life. But the worst blow came in 1931 during a trial involving Bow’s former secretary, Daisy De Voe, who was indicted on 37 counts of grand theft for stealing money, jewelry, and personal papers from Bow. In an attempt to throw the spotlight off of her crimes, De Voe and her lawyer entered Bow’s personal papers into evidence, including canceled checks for Bow’s nights out, payments for whiskey (illegal under Prohibition), and love letters, telegrams and other correspondence.

Bow, who was already suffering under the strain of the pressures of fame, barely made it through the trial. Censorship boards began barring her films because of the “notoriety” she achieved via the sensationalized reports of the trial, and in May 1931, she checked into a sanatarium. She then retired from acting, moving to Nevada with her husband Rex Bell, who didn’t like the idea of her “showing herself off.” She returned to make two more talkies for Fox, Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933), before abandoning Hollywood for good.

Because of this, many have written that Bow didn’t transition successfully to talkies due to her Brooklyn accent (supposedly, Lina Lamont’s voice in Singin’ in the Rain was inspired by Bow). But the box office returns of her 11 sound pictures suggest that’s entirely untrue. Still, Bow’s image has predominantly endured as a cautionary tale, bright, quickly extinguished light of the wild party girl seen in her films. Her life is often known more for the rumors and false gossip surrounding it than her actual achievements, including the pernicious (oft-debunked) urban legend that she slept with the entire USC football team, as detailed in Kenneth Anger’s tawdry Hollywood Babylon.

Adrienne Dore and Clara Bow in ‘The Wild Party’.EVERETT

So then, what might a Taylor Swift song about Clara Bow be about? There’s the obvious link of being a self-possessed, independent woman who is condemned for her success and subject to the misogynistic scrutiny and pressures of fame, particularly via the lens of who one chooses to date.

Many have also proposed the notion that Bow’s status as a legendary silent film star is in some way a reference to Swift’s intense privacy during her time dating Joe Alwyn, purportedly at Alwyn’s behest. There is, after all, another song on the album, “But Daddy, I Love Him” that’s title directly nods to a tale of a young woman who trades her voice for love. Others still have pointed to Swift’s lyric in “Gorgeous” off Reputation about sharing a drink in a bar on Sunset and Vine, the location of Bow’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Or maybe we’re all full of it and Swift has just written a bop about living it up in the Jazz Age.

Whatever the connection to Bow, there’s undeniable parallels between her life and Swift’s — and come April 19th, the title’s meaning will be revealed.