Music of The Bear

The Chicago band Wilco makes multiple appearances in the soundtrack of The Bear. An early critic of the show's depiction of the city complained about "a full Wilco soundtrack without any house music or Kanye."^[40] The song "Via Chicago" is used in the pilot episode and in the trailer for season 1.^[41][42] The song has guitar distortion that is "how the band imagined it might sound if you were standing under Chicago's 'L' train and trying to have a conversation."^[43] As told by Americana UK, "Jeff Tweedy lives in Chicago, so the lyric about coming home can be taken one of two ways—he's either just coming back home, like Carmy did when his brother shot himself in the head, or home is a state of mind where you are content and comfortable in your head. Maybe home was simply an abstraction to Tweedy, but I doubt it."^[9]

"Impossible Germany," from the 2007 Sky Blue Sky album, plays during the entire four-minute, 45-second final segment of the episode "Sheridan," when the lights are back on after a power outage, and clean dishes are coming out of the Hobart. Carmy and Syd work in parallel, as "Carmy deveins shrimp and talks with Sydney. The song features Nels Cline's signature guitar solo."^[16] All 11 minutes of the Kicking Television: Live in Chicago version of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" play during the "Review" crisis and reprises briefly in "The Bear."^[1][21] The episode "Beef" uses the Kicking Television version of "Handshake Drugs," "which gets even skronkier than the studio version, chasing some Television-esque guitar solos to ground and frantically exploding into a crescendo," while Sugar (Abby Elliott) explains IRS stipulations and DBAs to Carmy.^[16][44] "I'm Always in Love (Early Run Through)" plays in the season 4 episode "Sophie."^[36]

"You Are Not Alone" by Mavis Staples plays in "Pasta" around Sydney and Emmanuel's (Robert Townsend) celebration of her late mom, as ceiling mold hits Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Ebra (Edwin Lee Gibson) listlessly cuts celery in an empty kitchen, and Carmy "joylessly" cooks "in a barren apartment."^[45] "You Are Not Alone" comes from a 1995 collaboration between Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy, "as Chicago a combo as crumbled sausage and giardiniera, [who] teamed up for two masterpiece albums...this soft acoustic chugger from their first effort is a highlight, as it looks outward, offering moral support, a hand, friendship, [and] unity."^[45] According to Americana UK, "Tweedy wrote the beautiful and uplifting title track for Staples...the studio album was recorded [at the Wilco loft]. The chemistry between Tweedy and Staples...is self-evident. After over 70 years in the music industry, Staples remains as ebullient and as vital as ever."^[46] "I Like the Things About Me" in the next episode,"Sundae," serves a sequel, which ends the episode "on a strident and self-affirming note."^[45][e]

"Strange Currencies (Remix)" by R.E.M. and "If You Want Blood You've Got It" from the 1979 AC/DC album Highway to Hell are the two songs used for The Bear season 2 trailer.^[48] "Strange Currencies" is a considered a "deep cut, from 1994's under-appreciated Monster LP."^[49] According to Michael Stipe, the song is about "'when somebody actually thinks that, through words, they're going to be able to convince somebody that they are their one and only'...There is yearning—maybe this can work out—'I don't know why you're mean to me / When I call you on the telephone,' Stipe moans."^[50]

"Strange Currencies" first plays at the end of "Pasta," during Carmy and Claire's refrigerator-case reunion.^[20] The song, about "a lovelorn protagonist who yearns to win over a mysterious crush," becomes a recurring motif.^[51][52] The song plays over nighttime aerials of Chicago roads in "Pop," and again in "Omelette," as Carmy's alleyway panic attack, complete with uncontrollable hand spasms, plays out to a garbled, disrupted version of "Strange Currencies." In attempting to resolve his distress, "Carm tries to envision happier times with his current fling, Claire, but that only makes him spiral harder. And then, poof! All of his nerves go away the second he imagines his co-chef, Sydney," and the song reverts to normal.^[53][54] In "Apologies," the 2020 pandemic-release Nine Inch Nails instrumental "Hope We Can Again" reprises from "The Bear," bringing "haunted children's music box" vibes and a "piano line...pure and poignant."^[38][55] As Carmy's in-progress plate clatters into the dish bin, he spares a glare for the restaurant's bar cart, and the soundtrack segues into "Strange Currencies," which warbles distantly underneath the Nine Inch Nails. Track repetition is unusual on TV shows, but The Bear "is about how the past controls the present...Your memories don't change, and the songs that stick in your head don't really change, either."^[56] The song plays again in "Green" after Carmy promises to find Claire's green sweatshirt, while Jess (Sarah Ramos) and Richie talk about how "honesty is sanity."^[36]

In 2024, Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd wrote that the song plays the role of a love theme for The Bear.^[57] In 2025, the song was described as "the show's emotional Rosetta Stone."^[58] Other R.E.M. songs used on The Bear are "Oh My Heart," "Half a World Away," and "Finest Worksong."^[49]

The Replacements surface at a turning point in season 2, beginning with "Bastards of Young" ("'God what a mess / On the ladder of success,' Westerberg contemptuously sings, taking sport at the rapidly receding myth of American upward mobility. 'You take one step / And miss the whole first rung.'"), serving in The Bear, and in other media, as what The New Yorker deemed a "calling card of sorts for misfit stories with a socioeconomic subtext."^[59] The song was originally written by Paul Westerberg "about a guy driving to a water tower intending to kill himself....probably on the pleas of some A&R person that suicide does not sell records, the lyrics were slightly altered and horns were added...Although the song never came close to charting, it was considered one of the band's best."^[50] Fak (Matty Matheson) tells contractor Tim that "Can't Hardly Wait" is the "greatest, like, high school song ever written," which inserts "Pop" into a meta-debate about "why the Minneapolis rockers are so severely underrated," and sets up Claire and Carmy's climactic "Can't Hardly Wait" hookup in the under-construction restaurant.^[50][60]

Evie Jerimovich's favorite singer is Taylor Swift, and Swift CDs are on permanent rotation in dad Richie's car CD player.^[61][62] "Love Story (Taylor's Version)" features prominently in "Forks," which Collider ranked fourth on its "top 10 uses of Taylor Swift on TV" list.^[63] "Love Story" comes from the country pop Fearless (2008), a "tween-y" album of "sparkly tales of princes and princesses and Romeos and Juliets...but holy shit does 'Love Story' ever hit like a ton of bricks here."^[64] In 2025, a critic wrote that The Bear uses music differently than do other prestigious shows like Succession, Industry, Severance, and Euphoria, in that song selections serve "like a great relish [that] simply enhances the brilliant writing and acting on screen...The emotional pay‑off isn't hinted at or teased by the music—that's all down to Moss‑Bachrach's superb acting. Through the use of Taylor Swift's 'Love Story (Taylor's Version)', played while Richie drives home with a new contentment, that realisation just unfolds. The song—through the chorus refrain of 'It's a love story, baby just say yes'—carries the feeling as plainly and literally as possible."^[65]

"Long Live (Taylor's Version)," originally from the 2010 Speak Now album, plays from inside the house during the Richie–Frank (Josh Hartnett) conversation in "Violet." Actress Gillian Jacobs said, "It makes total sense that Frank would want to be a Swiftie dad. He has his nails painted in that scene, and I'm sure he's got his friendship bracelets ready to go."^[66] "Style (Taylor's Version)," originally released on the transitional 2014 1989 album, is on the playlist for Tiffany and Frank's wedding.^[36][67][68]

In season 2, Tiff wears a 1989 Tour sweatshirt from 2015 to Christmas dinner 2018, and Richie asks Cicero (Oliver Platt) for concert tickets, initially hoping that he, Evie, and Tiff can go as a family.^[61] In season 3, Eva sleeps under an Eras Tour blanket, and Richie wears friendship bracelets to work.^[61][69]

"Glass, Concrete, and Stone," by David Byrne, from Grown Backwards (2004), accompanies a turning point in Richie's life. Swift is the unexpected joy bomb, but the actions are what carry Richie forward, writes Todd Lazarski of the The A.V. Club: "This episode is more, at heart, about learning to set your place at the table. And so is Byrne's song, which captures disappointment, disillusionment in the city and its jungle, your breath in the air on the walk to the car when it's not even light yet, 'waking at the crack of dawn, to send a little money home'...It is the fit for the Richie episode, for his quiet turn toward the guy that 'wears suits now'."^[45] Editor Adam Epstein "intersperses scenes of colorful and pleasing food production alongside Richie's toil."^[70] Distant Richie dutifully polishes forks while across town the Bears haltingly assemble the restaurant, with the "eerie-if-there-ever-was-one track...perfectly summing up the nervy butterflies in his stomach, the tune's minimalist instrumentation and angst-ridden lyrics masterfully complement Richie's high anxiety."^[71]

The show frequently recycles music from existing film soundtracks, for instance, multiple songs previously used in movies from Chicago screenwriter–director John Hughes (including "Weird Romance" from the Weird Science soundtrack, and "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham from National Lampoon's Vacation), a Nino Rota tribute called "Rocco and His Brothers" by Mi Loco Tango, "We Close Our Eyes" by Susanna Hoffs from the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie soundtrack, "The Show Goes On" by Bruce Hornsby from the 1991 Chicago action film Backdraft, the haunted lullaby "Dream Little One, Dream" from Charles Laughton's 1955 Night of the Hunter, and "It's Magic" by Doris Day.^{[5][10][38][72][73][74]}

In "Forks," Richie gets "Diamond Diary" by Tangerine Dream from the soundtrack to Thief, a 1981 Michael Mann-directed Chicago crime picture.^[21] One music writer described the song as a "synth-hysteria delivery system shot through an '80s pastel skydance. Storer cleverly informs us that The Bear should be considered in that strong visual aesthetic grouping Mann has perfected in his career. And dammit, Storer may be right."^[75] "Diamond Diary" reprises in "Forever" and "Groundhogs" and becomes a de facto Richie's theme at moments of forward progress.^[72]

Compositions by Reznor and Atticus Ross recur between episodes 15 ("Forks") and 28 ("Forever"), including instrumentals from the musical scores of Waves, Mid90s, and The Vietnam War, and pieces from the Ghosts series, including "Hope We Can Again," which plays for "10 crushing minutes" during "The Bear" and "somehow fits each scene perfectly, going from poignant to ominous to soothing without the music ever really changing."^[64] "Together" is looped three times as the sole music in "Tomorrow," and "13 Ghosts II" is paired with the legerdemain montage.^[76][39] One critic called the music of season 3 "very Nine Inch Nails-ish, basically one long drone...a real snooze-fest."^[77] Others found the music compelling, particularly the use of "Together" "shifting in tempo as we're pushed further into Carmy's state of mind."^[78]

Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) picks up the microphone at Alice's in Avondale for culinary-school karaoke night (following a stranger's performance of "Tonight, Tonight," which InsideHook Chicago deemed a terrible karaoke pick, because too much "sincerity" and "difficult to sing").^[79][80] In the words of the Exclaim! critic, "It turns out that Tina can really fucking sing, and she absolutely brings the house down with a rendition of the bilingual country ballad 'Before the Next Teardrop Falls'."^[64] Tina's torch song karaoke leaves the audience with as many questions as answers, but Colón-Zayas "really digs deep and delivers on the heart-rending show-stopper of being there."^[45]

Moss-Bachrach is an accomplished singer and guitarist who has performed in character in the HBO series Girls and the AMC series NOS4A2.^[81][82] In addition to car singing, Richie sings fragments of the arias "Una furtiva lagrima" from L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti and "Largo al factotum" from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini, the Spanish-language happy birthday song ("¡Feliz cumpleaños a ti!"), and a couple of lines from "The 3:10 to Yuma" (1957).^[36][38] Richie sings "Una furtiva lagrima" to himself as he enters the office to talk to Natalie in season 3's "Violet."^[83] The tenor aria comes from an Italian-language comedy about a snake-oil salesman's purported love potion ("the elixir of love") that is, simply, red wine.^[84] "Lovesick hero" Nemorino makes increasingly ridiculous efforts to earn money to buy what he believes is an enchantment.^[84][85] Nemorino is often comically drunk (because red wine), but "his growing maturity" is exposed in the heartfelt "La furtiva lagrima," about tears he saw in "strong-willed" Adina's eyes, which give him hope she could love him back.^[85][86]

Brian Wilson is an "icon" of 20th-century American popular music,^[87] but the restaurant's opening-night playlist includes "Vega-Tables," which is one of "the weirdest Beach Boys songs" ("an unexpected selection"), and a weird version at that, the 2003 Brian Wilson Presents Smile recording.^[44][21][20] "Vega-Tables" is a "guilty pleasure" track originally written for the abortive late-1960s effort Smile.^[f] "Vega-Tables" ("I'm red as a beet / 'cause I'm so embarrassed") plays when Carmy visits the dining room to serve Claire, and encounters Sugar, who just lost a fight with the toilet.^[89][21] Wilson thought that "Vega-Tables" might be the "earth" for a suite about the classical elements.^[g] To score the scene in "Fishes" where Pete (Chris Witaske) brings a casserole to a gathering in the Midwestern United States,^[h] the show uses a version of "Fire" called "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," also from Brian Wilson Presents Smile.^[20][i] One music historian wrote about this song, "The doors of hell are suddenly kicked open...[the] track is so thoroughly demonic that it could be the scariest thing ever put on tape."^[96] According to American Songwriter, "Fire" coincided with Wilson's "descent into psychosis and the subsequent undoing of the whole Smile project."^[97]

Another diagetic dining-room tune that plays during the Bear's first service is "Supernova" by Liz Phair ("Your kisses are as wicked as an M-16 / And you fuck like a volcano / And you're everything to me"), which suggests "the staff operating at their highest and helping things run smoothly."^[21] "I Think I Need a New Heart" by the Magnetic Fields tunes up at the end of the long first act, when Syd's dad is visibly delighted with the Bear's food ("Cause it all comes out wrong / Unless I put it in a song / So the radio plays / 'I Think I Need a New Heart', just for you").^[98][99]

"Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops," a 1984 single by the Cocteau Twins, known for their "indecipherable lyrics,"^[4] opens "Violet."^[38] Range magazine called it perfectly suited to the "memory of Carmy's now-tarnished relationship with Claire. The track punctuates a tragic hospital story told by Claire that details the odd, extreme lengths humans go to process the worst of emotional and physical pain. It's a tale just as surreal as the song accompanying it."^[26] Another critic described the "oddly soothing" song as important ambience "during a lengthy scene where the couple privately exchange war stories" about work.^[4] Uproxx deemed dream pop an appropriate genre for Carmy's reverie, and asked, "Is it possible that Carmy has invented a version of Claire in his mind that doesn't match up with reality? Do 'pearly-dewdrops' drops' exist in real life? I'm not so sure."^[56]

The show uses four Weezer songs, most notably "Getchoo," which accompanies the news of the forthcoming Chicago Tribune review into the end credits of "Violet." "Getchoo" comes from an "initially panned" record that "has since been critically reevaluated, with some dubbing Pinkerton (1996) as Weezer's opus. Yet unlike our favourite albums, restaurants often aren't afforded the gift of a second chance."^[26] Another music columnist noted that Pinkerton features a "problematic genius [who] tries to rationalize his behavior even though he might just be a toxic jerk. For that reason, bringing The Bear and Pinkerton together for the closing credits...was especially inspired."^[56]

"Forever" opens with the Blue Album's "In the Garage," which recounts the joys of playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends while listening to Kiss songs.^{[38][100][101]} "Fishes" closes with "The Christmas Song," and deep cut "Suzanne" (1994) plays during Michelle's (Sarah Paulson) encounter with Donna at the wedding.^[36][64]

The Bear uses four live Van Morrison tracks including "Slim Slow Slider/I Start Breaking Down (Live)" in "Scallop." Executive producer Senior said "Saint Dominic's Preview" in "Hands" felt like "Richie being vulnerable, and...the same song mean[t] something totally different for Carmy."^[1] "Here Comes the Night" in "Pop" is "dark, brooding guitar pop" about infidelity, playing at the house party Carmy attends with Claire.^[21][102]

"Purple Heather" (elsewhere titled "Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?") is a folk song, originally about transhumance in the Scottish Highlands, the "migration of people and their cattle to the summer shielings...a wider landscape of habitation and productivity, known to anthropologists as a taskscape."^[76][103] A song of "reassuring warmth and sense of collective destiny," Morrison's narrator sings "And we'll all go together / In the wild mountain thyme / All around the blooming heather."^[104] The lyrics allude to the idea that "the thyme plant was the fairies' playground."^[105][j] "Purple Heather" has been described as "a little mysterious, a little magical."^[108] The song was described as "the perfect soundtrack to a bittersweet sequence" in "Children" where Carmy finds out that his mentor, Chef Terry (Olivia Colman), is letting go of both her restaurant and her staff.^[109]

The Bear season 3 trailer uses "Mixed Emotions" by the Rolling Stones.^[110] The song reflects the ambivalence of the main characters, with an "added layer of resonance" from "the fractured relationship between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards" that almost ended the band.^[56] However much past hurt and resentment were sincerely felt, the 1989 song "teems with confidence and harmony...'[So] get off the fence now, it's creasing your butt', Jagger sings hilariously."^[111]

Pairing Dion DiMucci's 1975 "Only You Know" with an evening snowfall in "Scallop" felt like "a collective reward," wrote one critic.^[72] Another argued that it stood in for every song "that gets played as the bar is closing, or the baseball game is over, your team lost, but you still believe in the next time...a corny, sweet, and emotional moment."^[75]

In "Replicants," the Paul Simon ballad "Let Me Live in Your City" (released as a "work in progress" bonus track on the 2004 reissue of There Goes Rhymin' Simon), accompanies Carmy to Forest Avenue in the inner suburb of Oak Park, a nexus of Frank Lloyd Wright houses.^[112][113] The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the song "plays as Carmy drives alone, the camera catching the undersides of bridges and blurred city scenes...seeing the world through a dirty windshield. He visits the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, a sequence that flirts with travelogue territory but ultimately pulls us closer to him...Simon's warm, conversational vocals overlaying Carmy's quiet wandering makes the scene feel unusually intimate."^[72] Consequence thought that pairing Simon with the studio, the Prairie School-style Arthur and Grace Heurtley House, and the idiosyncratic Nathan G. Moore House, was "so lovely" that it was "a bit on the nose."^[67][112]

Carmy asks Fak for advice on whether or not Claire is his girlfriend to "The Crane Wife 3" by The Decemberists, part of a 2006 song cycle inspired by Japanese folktales about the crane wife.^[44] (An enchanted crane turns into a woman, marries, and secretly plucks out all her own feathers for the sake of her husband's fortunes. The husband discovers his wife's true identity, and her sacrifice, but too late. The damage is done; she is dying.)^[114] Per AllMusic, "This tune from the band's fourth album offers a resolution to the story laid out in 'The Crane Wife, Pts. 1 & 2' (though strangely it appears first on the album)."^[44] "A Beginning Song," the last track on the band's seventh album, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (2015), is the "centerpiece" song of the "Bears" wedding episode that works as "a slow-build crescendo of hope."^[58]

"I Got You Babe" is first heard in "Groundhogs" ("put your little hand in mine / there ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb") when Carmy wakes up on his couch in front of a TV playing Groundhog Day, which was filmed 1993 in scenic Woodstock, Illinois, with a cast that included Abby Elliott's dad Chris Elliott as cameraman Larry.^{[36][72][115][116]} The protagonist of Groundhog Day is "disaffected jerk" Phil Connors (Bill Murray), who "finds himself trapped in a single day, February 2, that is repeated over and over...giving him the time to notice those around him and to develop meaningful relationships."^[117] In his endless day, during which he can conduct infinite experiments on right living, Connors "shows us what we would actually end up wanting were we actually immortal and omniscient: a cultivated life full of meaningful relationships and projects, rooted not in fear of punishment, death, or pain but instead in the authentic desire to be good and to do good things for ourselves and others."^[118]

"I Got You Babe" reprises in "Green," over an interstitial montage of ingredients, sophisticated dishes, and bills getting paid (overlaid with "profit line go up" graphics, and pie charts ticking over from "fucked" to "good").^[72] Cracked writer Tara Ariano commented on inclusion of Groundhog Day: "If the movie is being used as an intertext here to make it very clear season 3's wheel-spinning was intentional...good one? But maybe now Storer can spin his wheels, like he's trying to drive himself and a screaming groundhog off a cliff, and step on it."^[119]

"Fast Slow Disco" by St. Vincent is the key music in the season 4 trailer.^[120] "Slow Disco" (co-written by Annie Clark and Joy Williams) from the 2017 Masseduction album plays over Sydney's kaleidoscopic scallop cook.^[121] The lyrics speak of "parallel lives...the path taken and the one you should or wish to have taken. Each life haunts the other as Clark acknowledges she can't wait to leave the current party."^[122]

"Goodbye" has only one song, the remix "Fast Slow Disco," and as used in the season finale, "The chorus: 'Slip my hand from your hand / Leave you dancin' with a ghost' feels like a poignant reflection of Carmy getting ready to leave Syd behind."^[72] American Songwriter magazine wrote, "A slow disco doesn't seem like it could be a thing. Discos are places for people to dance. Not just dance, but party. When you think of Studio 54, you don't imagine tender waltzes. But Annie Clark's gorgeous tune ends with this: 'Don't it beat a slow dance to death?' If you're hooked on this show as I am, you'll understand how this relates to Carmy's behavior."^[123] Another critic described the use of sound and music in the episode as "silence, then spark," calling the song an "electric kiss goodnight. The season closes not with a whimper—but a pulse...Few series uses music quite like The Bear does, emotionally literate, narratively integrated, and always a little offbeat. It's not just what you hear—it's what lingers, long after the kitchen falls silent."^[58]

Among the many other songs and musicians featured in the series are Radiohead, a band with a bear logo, whose "Let Down" brings down the curtain on season 1; the Bear of Busseto, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, opening and closing the main action of "Doors" with La traviata; the Counting Crows, including two versions of "Have You Seen Me Lately?" (in the same episode, one keyed to Richie, another to Carmy), and "A Murder of One," with the lyrics out of order; and 1960s girl group the Ronettes, with Ronnie Spector out front, harmonizing through seasons 3 and 4.^{[1][4][124][125][126]}

• The Bear season 1 § Music
• The Bear season 2 § Music
• The Bear season 3 § Music
• The Bear season 4 § Music
• Gary (The Bear episode) § Music
• Food of The Bear
• Family on The Bear
• Bibliography of The Bear
• List of The Bear episodes
• List of The Bear characters