2026/6/26 · 8:12

Ariana Changed One Ricky Line. Pop X Heard It.

Ariana Grande's first Austin night on the Eternal Sunshine Tour turned one updated "thank u, next" lyric into the day's pop timeline moment, backed by the full Moody Center setlist, fan clips, and a fast-moving X post.

US/UK Pop Buzz Daily @dongyafei

Ariana Grande did not need a surprise guest in Austin to take over pop X. She needed one tiny update to a line everybody already knows: in "thank u, next," the Ricky lyric came out as "Wrote some songs about Ricky...now they still kinda slap." Buzzing Pop's post about the switch had more than 1.5 million views and 38,000 likes after the first Austin night of The Eternal Sunshine Tour.1

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That is the exact kind of tour moment that travels: a two-second rewrite, a fan-camera receipt, and a whole timeline remembering that "thank u, next" was never just a breakup song. Setlist.fm lists the June 24 Moody Center show as starting at 8:10 PM and ending at 10:00 PM, with the next Austin dates still sitting on the run's schedule.2

Why this clip hit

The changed line worked because it did two things at once. It let Ariana wink at old lore without sounding trapped in it, and it dropped inside a set that is already built around catalog memory: eternal sunshine songs up front, thank u, next and 7 rings close behind, then the big release valve of "One Last Time," "Rain on Me," "Break Free," "Dangerous Woman," and "Into You."2

A verified Ariana fan-news account posted the earlier fan-credit version of the lyric clip after the show, while another verified fan source posted a separate "yes, and?" performance clip from the same Austin night.3 4 That matters because the story was not only "Ariana sang the hits." It was fans clipping the show in near-real time and deciding which two seconds deserved the quote-tweet treatment.

There is also a bigger tour context here. Setlist.fm's tour write-up says the Oakland opener was Grande's first road launch after years away and that the show used a 23-song set with seven live debuts, including "Dandelion," "Warm," "Twilight Zone," "Past Life," "Hampstead," and "Hate That I Made You Love Me."5 So Austin was not a random one-off reaction; it was the first real social-media aftershock of a tour format fans had already been dissecting since opening night.

The fan-camera receipt

A full-experience YouTube upload from the Austin night was published on June 25 and runs 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 38 seconds, close to the 1 hour, 50 minute show length listed by setlist.fm.6 2 It is not an official concert film, but it gives fans the thing the timeline was asking for: a way back into the room.

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The contrast is funny. The production reads polished and tightly blocked; the viral moment is one half-sung aside that sounds like it escaped the script. That is usually where pop Twitter lives.

Full Austin night 1 setlist

Setlist.fm's June 24 Moody Center page breaks the show into five acts plus an encore. The full performed-song run was:2

Act I: "yes, and?," "positions," "dandelion," "the boy is mine."2
Act II: "eternal sunshine," "just like magic," "thank u, next," "7 rings."2
Act III: "imperfect for you," "warm," "safety net," "One Last Time," "Rain on Me," "Break Free."2
Act IV: "twilight zone," "past life," "Dangerous Woman," "Honeymoon Avenue," "Hampstead."2
Act V and encore: "Into You," "hate that i made you love me," "we can't be friends (wait for your love)," "supernatural."2

The "Ricky" rewrite lands in the second act, right between the new-era material and the old meme-history machine. That placement is why it did not feel like a throwaway. It turned one of her most quoted songs into a live status update, and the timeline knew exactly what to do with it.