It can cost a pretty penny to use Taylor Swift’s music in a project — just ask comedian Marc Maron.
“I think it came out to $50K [or] around that,” Maron, 61, said on the Thursday, July 24, episode of Vulture’s “Good One” podcast. “I did everything I could to get the joke in front of her.”
Maron performs a rendition of Swift’s “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” during his comedy shows after getting the requisite approval.
“I know Jack Antonoff enough to text him — and he’s the cowriter on that song,” Maron said on Thursday, referring to Swift’s longtime collaborator. “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?’”
Maron explained that Antonoff, 41, advised him to “go through the proper channels” to license the 2022 song from Midnights.
“It was doable. We made enough money,” Maron said of getting approval. “It was tight, but because of the ticket sales for the [televised version of the] special, we are able to get that song.”
According to Maron, the usage fee applies to “a minute” of the track.
“If I would have gone over the minute, it would have been more money,” he said. “We couldn’t even let it, like, play out the special or anything. So, I got together with a band and wrote that music as the opening and closing. Yeah, it was under a minute.”
Maron further stressed that he had “a history” with Swift’s song, and so he needed to play it during the shows.
“It had to happen,” Maron said. “The real fear is, like, [if] she doesn’t let you use it, and then what do you do? You can’t do the bit on the special. That’s why I was, like, [manifesting] ‘I think she’ll like the bit.’”
While Swift’s team “signed off” on Maron’s request, he has “no idea” whether the 35-year-old Grammy winner actually heard the joke herself.
Maron previously revealed his history with Swift’s discography on a May 2023 episode of his “WTF” podcast.
“I’m an open-minded guy, and I like music. I want to try to figure out what it is about Taylor Swift that everyone never shuts up about, but people love Taylor Swift [and] grown-ups, too,” he said on the episode. “I put in Midnights, and I start hiking. 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.”
Once Maron heard “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” he started tearing up about the track’s message about grief and loss.
“It got me, man, and then I got to the top of the mountain, and I do what I always do,” he added. “I do a couple of stretches, and then I stand up and I get a head rush. … I go to crouch back down because I felt too woozy, and in the process of crouching back down, I must have blacked out.”
When Maron woke up, he had thoughts of, “That’s the way to die.”
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