Marc Maron paid $50,000 to secure the rights to Taylor Swift's song Bigger Than The Whole Sky for use in his upcoming HBO comedy special, Marc Maron: Panicked.

The 61-year-old stand-up uses the tear-jerking ballad from the pop superstar's Midnights (3am Edition) album at the end of his routine and they just about managed to pay the fee to use a snippet of the track after the money started running out.

After getting in touch with the track's co-writer, Jack Antonoff, who happened to be a friend of Marc, they managed to get in touch with the right people to agree a figure for the usage.

The GLOW star said on the Vulture's Good One podcast: "I think it came out to $50K, around that.

"I did everything I could to get the joke in front of her."

He continued: "I know Jack Antonoff enough to text him, and he's the co-writer on that song.

"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?'"

Fortunately, the ticket sales for the show meant it didn't have to come out of Marc's own pocket.

He added: "It was doable. We made enough money. It was tight, but because of the ticket sales for the special, we were able to get that song."

Being able to use Bigger Than The Whole Sky - which tackles grief - was a big deal to Marc.

He explained: "My relationship with that song, and just the fact that I'm playing it on my phone.

"It had to happen."

Taylor's music has also appeared in the likes of The Summer I Turned Pretty and The Handmaid's Tale.

Elisabeth Moss wrote a heartfelt letter to Taylor, 35, in a bid to get permission to use one of her songs in an episode of The Handmaid's Tale.

The 43-year-old actress explained how much the Grammy winner's "her music means" to her and how the inclusion of the track Look What You Made Me Do would help the show - and she was delighted when Taylor agreed for the song to be used.

Elisabeth told Entertainment Tonight: "We've been so excited ... Honestly the feedback was her saying yes. For me, that was really, truly such an honour that she took the time to read, you know I wrote her a letter about what I felt the song meant for the episode and her music means to me and our cast.

"So the fact that she said yes to me was all the feedback that I needed. "

The song was featured in episode nine of the sixth season of The Handmaid's Tale, which aired in May, and Elisabeth previously revealed she'd wanted to include a Swift song in the series for years and she'd finally found the "perfect moment".

Elisabeth told Billboard: "I've been wanting to use a Taylor song for many years on the show and we finally found the perfect spot for a track from her, and I'm so glad we waited because there could not be a more perfect song for a more perfect moment.

"Taylor has been such an inspiration to me personally. As a Swiftie myself, and I think I can speak for [co-star] Yvonne [Strahovski] and our entire cast as well, who are all Swifties, it's such an honour to be able to use her music in the final episodes of our show."