Larger Than Life: “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” Meaning, Explained
Taylor’s heartbreaking Bigger Than The Whole Sky is an elegy. But who is it for?
The lyrics detail her heartbreak over a huge loss, her struggle to cope, and her hopelessness in grief. It’s an emotionally raw song, and a goodbye unlike any Taylor has written before.
Has she left us any clues that can help us identify the subject?
Here’s my full lyrical analysis of Swift’s Bigger Than The Whole Sky meaning, line by line.
Bigger Than The Whole Sky by Taylor Swift
- Title: Bigger Than the Whole Sky
- Written by: Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff
- Track: 15, Midnights 3am Edition
- Pen: Quill
- Lyrics from Genius
Bigger Than The Whole Sky Meaning: Narrative Summary
- Setting: Inside Taylor’s grief
- Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (a love lost, “you”)
- Mood: Sorrowful, regretful, mourning.
- Conflict: She lost something or someone very important to her.
- Inciting Incident: “it’s all over now”: something ended.
- Quest: Try to cope with grief.
- Symbols & Metaphors: “bigger than the whole sky,” “no words,” “aftermath,” “salt streams,” “Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness,” “all out to sea,” “more than just a short time,” “pine about,” “live without,” “What could’ve been, would’ve been / What should’ve been you.”
- Lesson: Grief is impossibly hard.
Who is Bigger Than The Whole Sky About?
Taylor has never revealed if Bigger Than The Whole Sky was inspired by any real people or things in her life.
Fans engage in lots of speculation, from the loss of a lover, to the loss of her masters, to other more private medical losses. Unless Taylor wants us to know who this may be about, we can only theorize.
What is Bigger Than The Whole Sky About?
This track is about grief: losing something or someone important to you, and how you cope with that loss.
The central metaphor is the loss being as big as “the whole sky,” meaning it’s a significant and life-altering loss.
Bigger Than The Whole Sky Lyrics Meaning: Line by Line
“No words appear before me in the aftermath,” she begins in the first verse. She’s speechless and shocked at what has just occurred. The “aftermath” is after she’s lost this person or thing, and gotten the news.
“Salt streams out my eyes and into my ears” means she’s crying while laying down. Her sensory experience is full-on: her tears (sight) invade her ears (sound).
“Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness,” she grieves. Like in Anti-Hero, she assumes that she’s the problem. She thinks she has the opposite of a Midas touch – everything in her life falls apart, and she’s the cause.
It must be so, she assumes, “’Cause it’s all over now, all out to sea.” It’s all done and dusted: she has lost this important person or thing, and watches it leave like a ship sailing out into deep waters.
This person or thing is unreachable, and not coming back.
Chorus: “You Were More Than Just a Short Time”
“Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,” she says, “You were bigger than the whole sky.” This person or thing was so important – so grand and all-encompassing – that it was more vast than the entire sky.
“You were more than just a short time” implies that she only held this person or thing for a brief period. Their time was cut short, but even though they didn’t get as much time as they deserved, it meant far more than its brevity.
“And I’ve got a lot to pine about,” she says, “I’ve got a lot to live without.” She has many things to yearn for, wanting this person or thing to come back. But it won’t, and she has to learn to live without them.
“I’m never gonna meet / What could’ve been, would’ve been / What should’ve been you,” she grieves. She’ll never get to meet this person or thing in the future, and see what it/they became. They should have had more time: their future was cut short.
The Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve sentiment is prominent in this album, and this track definitely ties in with the themes of regret and rumination.
Verse 2: “Every Single Thing To Come Has Turned Into Ashes”
The second verse worries about the fate of it all. “Did some bird flap its wings ovеr in Asia?” she asks. Did the butterfly effect cause this? Did a tiny, insignificant event cause this huge, life-changing one?
She also alludes to the butterfly effect in Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, which is another lyrical parallel to that track.
“Did some force take you bеcause I didn’t pray?” she wonders. Was she not a good enough girl, not pious enough? In another parallel, Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve is heavy with religious overtones, and describes how she lost her faith.
“Every single thing to come has turned into ashes,” she assumes. Everything that will come from now on will be ruined, because everything she’ll “touch becomes sick with sadness.” It must be her fault, and her future evaporates right in front of her.
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“’Cause it’s all over, it’s not meant to be,” she says. It must not have been fated, like the Invisible String. It wasn’t in the cards for her.
“So I’ll say words I don’t believe,” she says, promising she’ll pray from now on. This is the first time Taylor has acknowledged that she’s no longer religious in the way she used to be.
Her former image as a country artist tinged with Christianity slowly melted away, and as she shifted into the pop world, all mentions of God faded away.
On this album, she’s more into the Hindu and Buddhist ideals of karma and fate, but she promises she’ll pray to her old gods again. She’ll pray – even though she doesn’t believe in that kind of god anymore – if it could reverse the loss of this person or thing.
This reflects her similar loss of faith in Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve. In that track, she’s grieving a loss of a piece of herself: her “girlhood” and innocence. Does this track also ruminate on a piece of herself that she lost?
Bridge: “What Could’ve Been, Would’ve Been You”
The bridge ruminates over what would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been. These three words inextricably link these two songs together: they’re both about grief and loss.
But is what Taylor is grieving here the same thing she’s grieving in Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve? It’s unclear. I don’t think Taylor ever repeats phrases without intention: she’s a methodical mastermind. But what she’s hinting at here is vague.
Bigger Than The Whole Sky feels distinctly like the loss of a young person who never got to fulfill their destiny. Is this Taylor’s younger self that she’s grieving, like in WCS? It’s entirely possible.
Final Chorus: “What Should’ve Been You”
The final chorus repeats, and this time she feels more resigned and accepting of her fate and the fate of her loss.
In Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, she never reaches acceptance. But here, she does.
Has the “tomb” finally closed on the piece of herself that she lost? Is this song the final piece of the Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve narrative, and she’ll now put this trauma behind her?
WCS ends with “I regret you all the time,” and BTTWS ends with “what should’ve been you.” Are they both talking about the same subject – Taylor’s loss of “girlhood”? I think it’s impossible to ignore.
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Bigger Than The Whole Sky Lyrics Meaning: Final Thoughts
Whether or not this song is Taylor’s acceptance in the 5 stages of grief after Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, it doesn’t really matter.
The point is that she’s lost something, and lost something that was hugely important. Her grief takes up the entire sky, and paints everything that is to come in shades of blue.
It’s a gorgeous song about loss, the neverending heartbreak of it all, and how you can never get back what has gone “out to sea.”
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