What's Inside?
- Marc Maron spent $50,000 to license one minute of Taylor Swift’s song “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” for his HBO special.
- The emotional weight of the track aligned with Maron’s personal grief, making it a necessary centerpiece for a key comedic moment.
- Maron’s connection with Jack Antonoff helped him navigate licensing, ensuring the bit remained intact despite the hefty cost involved.
When you are performing stand-up comedy, a perfectly timed song can be the emotional hook that elevates a set from good to unforgettable. For Marc Maron, that moment came at a steep cost—$50,000 to be exact. In a bold, creative move, the veteran comedian shelled out tens of thousands to license a single minute of Taylor Swift’s “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” for his latest HBO special, Marc Maron: Panicked. And according to him, every penny was worth it.
Marc Maron Pays $50K to Use a Taylor Swift Song That Hit Him ‘Like a Ton of Bricks’
“It had to happen,” Marc Maron emphasized during his July 24 appearance on Vulture’s Good One podcast. “The real fear [was], like, [if] she doesn’t let you use it, and then what do you do? You can’t do the bit on the special.” The bit, which Maron is keeping under wraps, was crafted around Swift’s emotionally charged track from the 3 am Edition of Midnights, a song that clearly resonated with him on a deeply personal level.
“I think it came out to $50K [or] around that,” Maron, 61, revealed. “I did everything I could to get the joke in front of her.” Determined to make it happen, Maron reached out to music producer Jack Antonoff, co-writer of the song and a mutual acquaintance. “I know Jack Antonoff enough to text him,” he 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?’”
Antonoff advised him to go through the proper licensing process, which eventually led to success. But even with approval secured, the budget capped him to just a minute of audio. “I would have gone over the minute, [but] it would have been more money,” Maron admitted.
A Swift Song, A Personal Connection, and A Creative Payoff
Marc Maron didn’t license the song on a whim. His connection to “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” is rooted in emotion. “It got me, man,” he confessed, reflecting on a hike where the song overwhelmed him with grief and introspection, so much so that he nearly passed out. His relationship to the track ties back to the loss of his partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton, which he explored in his previous HBO special, From Bleak to Dark.
His Swiftie journey wasn’t preordained, either. “I’m an open-minded guy, and I like music. I [wanted] to try to figure out what it is about Taylor Swift that everyone never shuts up about,” Maron said on an earlier episode of his WTF podcast. “I’m like, ‘Alright. I get it.’ It’s pop music, but it’s not dance music [and] it’s, sort of, emotional. There’s a lot of longing and sadness and isolation and processing these overwhelming feelings of melancholy.”
Despite the price, Maron is proud of the result. “People love Taylor Swift [and] grown-ups, too,” he joked. And while it’s unclear if Swift herself has seen the bit, Maron is still hoping: “I think she’ll like the bit.”
