In ‘Bigger Than The Whole Sky’ Taylor Swift expresses grief and heartache over a person the narrator has never met and the track has become an anthem for those who are grieving a loved one”. The opening verse depicts the narrator in grievance, “No words appear before me in the aftermath/ Salt streams out my eyes and into my ears.”[ In the second verse, the narrator tries to find reason for the loss and expresses her guilt, alluding to religion: “Did some bird flap its wings over in Asia?/ Did some force take you because I didn’t pray?” The chorus is dedicated to someone the narrator has not met: “And I’ve got a lot to pine about/ I’ve got a lot to live without/I’m never gonna meet/ What could’ve been, would’ve been/ What should’ve been you.” Swift uses her breathy vocals in an upper register to sing the word “goodbye” in the chorus: “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye/You were bigger than the whole sky/You were more than just a short time.”
Whilst capturing much of the essence of grief and loss, (indeed it made me weep when I listened to it), there is a sense of God being someone with scorecard constantly judging us and then punishing us when we fail. This lead to a sense of empty hopelessness in the ‘goodbye’, which I cannot accept as the last word.
Rend Collective’s ‘My Lighthouse’, is a song that provided Katy and I much comfort after David died because it brings with it the hope and comfort of God which we have found to be present even in the darkest of times. God will wrap Elizabeth in his loving arms and carry her ‘Safe to shore’. We know that we will see her again when we join her on that farthest shore.
