Comedian and podcast host Marc Maron gave the inside scoop on how he was able to use pop star Taylor Swift’s song in his upcoming special. In summary? It cost him — literally.
“Marc Maron: Panicked,” Maron’s new special out Aug. 1 on HBO, includes a segment contingent on Swift’s song “Bigger Than The Whole Sky.”
Maron sings the lyrics and plays the song on the guitar during the seemingly solemn moment, judging by a recording shared by Largo, the venue where Maron performed the special.
“When you see Marc’s new HBO special, you will know that this song has a lot of deeply emotional meaning to him,” the venue shared in a caption.
Maron knew that he had to use the song, no matter how expensive it was.
“It had to happen,” Maron said on an episode of Vulture’s “Good One” podcast.
The actual price tag? Maron says it cost him around $50,000 to use just one minute of the song.
His original plan was to use the entire song until he realized he wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Maron said he went to Jack Antonoff, Swift’s longtime friend and producer, to see if there were any strings he could pull.
“I know Jack Antonoff enough to text him — and he’s the co-(producer) on that song,” Maron said.
“I said, ‘I don’t know what’s proper or how to do this, but we’re running out of money on this thing. It’s probably going to come out of my pocket. Is there anything you can do about this song or talk to Taylor or whatever?’” he added.
Following Antonoff’s advice to get a proper approval from her team, the comedian told Vulture that he decided to just use one minute of the song.
“If I would have gone over the minute, it would have been more money,” Maron revealed.
The biggest question is yet to be answered: Has the singer seen Maron’s segment?
“I have no idea if Taylor Swift saw the bit,” Maron said.
When Swift’s “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” was part of the 2022 album “Midnights.”
The portion of the song Maron sings describes loss: “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye / You were bigger than the whole sky / You were more than just a short time,” he sings, in part. At the time of its release, many listeners used the song to process their miscarriages.
Maron’s 2023 HBO special, “From Bleak to Dark,” was about the sudden death of his partner, director Lynn Shelton. Shelton died in 2020 of a previously undiagnosed blood disorder. She was 54.
Maron said in a statement that this upcoming special is some of the “best work” he’s done.
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