A Swiftie Weighs in on Marc Maron’s ‘Bigger Than the Whole Sky’ Cover
When Marc Maron recently released his cover of Taylor Swift’s “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” a number of people found themselves asking, “Who is this even for?”
If Maron’s answer is “Swifties,” he just might be right.
The pair’s respective fan bases seemingly couldn’t be more different. While Swifties are grappling with young love, Maron’s followers are on their third divorce. Maron garners laughs with jokes about smoking; Swift gets thousands of fans to sing along to her lyric “spelling is fun!” during The Eras Tour.
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But in his new stand-up special, Marc Maron: Panicked, the comedian spent the last few minutes of his set recalling how Swift’s 2022 track “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” helped him process the sudden passing of his partner Lynn Shelton in 2020.
“The interesting thing about grief is that when you’re in it at the beginning, it’s all-consuming,” he told the audience before playing a snippet of the song. “It takes over your mind, your heart, your spirit and you can’t stop it, and you don’t know if it’ll ever go away.”
On Sunday, the podcast legend posted a clip of him performing a rendition of the Midnights track during a live performance. “I decided to cover the Taylor Swift song that had a profound impact on me in terms of sitting in grief,” he captioned the video, comparing his version to ‘90s rock band, Mazzy Star. “It broke me. I got choked up in the middle of the last verse. It was pretty raw, very emotional, but I felt good about it.”
Maron’s cover managed to win over at least one new fan.
Cassie, who runs Swiftie fan page @yvrswiftie, admits that she’d “never heard of” Maron before today, but found his cover to be “very hauntingly beautiful,” noting that she particularly enjoys the homage to “Fade Into You.”
“Toward the last verse, especially seeing him getting emotional, really gave me full body chills,” she adds of Maron’s “dreamy and sort of forlorn” performance. “It’s a pretty emotional song, but seeing his rendition and the soul he put into performing it really took it to a new level for me.”
Cassie speculates that she probably isn’t the only Swiftie who would appreciate Maron’s approach, saying that the pop princess herself would likely give her stamp of approval, too. “I hope she sees it, as he and the band did a beautiful job,” she tells me.
With WTF winding down, maybe there’s a new line of work in Maron’s future: Taylor Swift cover artist.
