During its run, The Bear established itself as a show with great taste in music. The show’s music supervisors, Josh Senior and Christopher Storer (the latter of whom is also the show’s creator), have been sure to sprinkle an array of flavors onto the soundtrack, adding in recordings by actual Chicagoans (Mavis Staples, Serengeti), songs closely associated with the city (a demo version of Sufjan’s Stevens’ “Chicago,” “Love On A Real Train” from Tangerine Dream’s Risky Business score), icons of alternative and classic rock (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Kim Deal, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison), and one very meaningful selection from the reigning queen of pop.
That unforgettable scene when Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) marks a moment of personal victory by singing along to his daughter’s fave, Taylor Swift, demonstrates the show’s knack for giving characters their own musical moments and moods. The same goes for the way “The Show Goes On” by Bruce Hornsby And The Range serves as Marcus’ (Lionel Boyce) theme, underscoring moments like his mother’s trip to the hospital and when his dessert-making prowess gets him crowned one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs. Other tracks that The Bear made its own get applied to multiple members of the kitchen staff in a number of different scenarios—go-tos for when Storer and team needed to ratchet up the tension, or make room for Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and company to contemplate their hopes and dreams. And within three such needle drops from The Bear’s seemingly infinite playlist—“New Noise” by Refused, “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” by Wilco, and Eddie Vedder’s cover of “Save It For Later” by The Beat—you can trace the arc of the entire series.
“New Noise” by Refused
When things are about to heat up in the kitchen—or in the case of season three’s “Ice Chips,” the labor and delivery unit—The Bear reaches for a six-strum rallying cry that says it’s about to, as Mikey (Jon Bernthal) and Carmy like to say, “let it rip.” Consider it the show’s equivalent of “Reveille,” only instead of rousing troops (or campers) from slumber, it calls the chefs into action. Refused’s approach is more suited to Carmy’s palate, but the effect is the same.
Now and then, The Bear evokes the steel-edged seriousness of a bustling kitchen and the cool factor of a skilled shredder with a little distorted electric guitar—even a surprisingly poignant moment like the montage of printed photos in “Forever” gets an extra kick from the quiet-loud-quiet crunch of Weezer’s “In The Garage.” Not exactly the coolest band in the world, but you get the point: Young chefs honing their craft and having a lot of fun doing it is analogous to a young musician finding a sense of safety and belonging in a rehearsal space. But no single needle drop signals the crew’s passion and willingness to put it all on the line like “New Noise.”
The Bear’s musicskews heavily dad rock, but the ethos expressed in “New Noise” (and the album it comes from, The Shape Of Punk To Come) aligns with what the characters on The Bear are trying to do in the culinary world—pushing back against old ways of doing things, introducing unorthodox methods and ingredients to tired recipes. The dirt on the guitars is a punk enough signature to express that, no matter what’s implied by the suit-and-tie wardrobe Richie brought over from the upscale Ever. That extends to the force and speed of the song, too: These chefs want to make as strong a creative statement as possible in a brief window of time—and to do so as a team.
“Spiders (Kidsmoke)” by Wilco
While this krautrock-inspired workout appears in the series only a few times, when it shows up, it packs a punch. Where “New Noise” suggests the crew is rising to meet a challenge, getting pumped and primed for a new adventure, “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is there to underscore the moments when it could quickly all go to hell. “New Noise” offers the show short bursts of momentum; “Spiders” memorably maintains and builds the tension of the one-shot to-go chaos in season one’s “Review.” What would The Bear even be without its big fails, when the chefs are all fighting back there—a comedy? This song is so effective at embodying the low hum of explosive tension that reverberates throughout the show’s first kitchen nightmare that the next time its steady throb sneaks into the mix, it immediately feels foreboding—we know what happened last time. Syd (Ayo Edebiri) stabbed Richie in the ass. It was bad.
There’s some ingenuity in the version of “Spiders” that’s used that first time around, too: This isn’t the 10-minute studio recording from 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, but rather the gnarlier, more muscular (and one minute longer) one from 2005’s Kicking Television: Live In Chicago. Putting live tracks on the soundtrack became another signature of The Bear, adding a different, less sealed-off sound and energy to the more personal moments in these characters’ worlds. It invites the viewer into the space in a way that can’t be achieved with performances shaped in studio, and the scrappy quality The Bear often seeks to embody benefits from this approach.
And in this particular instance, it provides both punchline and punctuation. As the credits come up at the end of “Review” and the gang has objectively failed in their endeavor to accommodate a stream of seemingly endless online orders—turning on one another in the process—the applause from the live “Spiders” kicks in. Given the show’s setting, it’s appropriate that it’s a Chicago crowd giving this meta congratulations to the actors and everyone behind the camera who sustained the scene and brought it to a confident close—an emotional release for all involved.
“Save It For Later” by Eddie Vedder
While this bespoke cover was a later addition to the show’s repertoire, appearing only in seasons three and four, it quickly cemented its heavyweight status on the soundtrack. For one thing, it’s been used at this point about as many times as “New Noise.” The original, more uptempo version by The Beat pops up once, over end credits, but it’s Eddie Vedder’s take on the tune that best communicates the other main narrative note that defines The Bear: its hopefulness.
The staid, yet perky, fingerpicked rhythm of Vedder’s arrangement has a breeziness despite its intricacy—the Pearl Jam frontman makes it sound like he could do this in his sleep. You can hear the labor of committing its pattern to muscle memory, the dedication that comes with playing the part over and over again to get it down. That this is a solo, acoustic performance lends a layer of introspection to the lyrics: “Don’t run away and let me down” is a plea that could be directed towards a person (from Carmy to Claire, for example), but it could just as easily be seen as begging for any dream to materialize—like a financially viable restaurant. Every single character on The Bear is so full of longing for their desires to come to fruition, for support along the way, for someone to hold their hand while they figure it all out. You can imagine just about any one of them vibing to it and finding themselves in it.
And while “Save It For Later” arrives later in the series’ run, Vedder and Pearl Jam are there from the beginning. “Animal,” from their sophomore album Vs., appears over the end credits of The Bear’s very first episode, and then again when Carmy is stuck in the fridge and Richie takes charge in the season-two finale. “Save It For Later” represents a stark contrast, lyrically and tonally. In “Animal,” the speaker is in victim mode, “five against one,” and asking “why would you want to hurt me?” The shift from “Animal” to “Save It For Later” feels like personal growth, from acknowledging only the hurt that exists to admitting to the need for connection that lives beneath it. And what could be more The Bear than that?
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