The soundtrack music of the 2022–2026 American television series The Bear is chosen by music supervisors and executive producers Christopher Storer and Josh Senior. Per Senior, before production began in earnest on the series, Storer sent out "50 or 60 songs" to the production team with the message "'This is what the show sounds like.'" Ayo Edebiri has said that Storer has musicality top of mind: "That's Chris' thing...there's different movements. His own challenge that he puts on himself, and that, in turn, puts on us, is that we're still in the same piece of music, but everything just has a different feeling." Jeremy Allen White has described Carmy searching "for the right tempo." The Los Angeles Times TV critic wrote in 2024, "[The Bear is] a fundamentally musical show—and not just in terms of its use of recordings to underscore or create counterpoint with the action...but constructed tonally, rhythmically...the impact of the series is less literary than it is musical; it lights up the limbic system." According to one critic, the song choices "are auditory frames for a moving tale...There is an intention behind every selection. This isn't a soundtrack to play out behind the action, a score to bring a little bit of colour to the quieter moments, this is an integral part of the show's prowess."
One scholarly study of the show argued that "the task outlined by The Bear is to transform chaotic noise...into music in order to attempt the creation of the new." The series begins with a general racket (punk and rage and syncopated edits). Season 3 is punctuated by tense silences. These moods slowly give way to the melodies of season 4, as the crew begin to "listen to one another, and, in general, find love and comfort. Love songs...litter the soundtrack." Melanie McFarland wrote in Salon.com that season 5 is a "harmonious response to the feral call of the first." Many selections connect to a Chicago or Midwestern United States sense of identity: "The sound of the city combines ethnic musical traditions with the vitality of urban culture, demonstrating a solid emotional link between places, their sonic representation, and people who value the particular sound of music." The local talent showcase includes, but is not limited to, Mavis Staples, Wilco, John Cougar Mellencamp, the Smashing Pumpkins, Sufjan Stevens, and Curtis Mayfield.
The show frequently uses multiple instances of the same song spread over seasons, multiple versions of the same song, or a series of distinct excerpts from the same song. The A.V. Club asserted that the show's use of live concert tracks (rather than studio-recorded album versions) provided a "scrappy quality" to the show, and "a different, less sealed-off sound and energy to the more personal moments." Some critics have described the music selections as dated "dad rock," and expressed surprise or disappointment that so few of the tracks are 21st-century music (with exceptions like Adrianne Lenker's 2024 release "No Machine"). Others have called The Bear's compilation soundtrack "stellar," "exemplary," and one of "the finest" or "best" soundtracks in contemporary television.
Opening credits "Chicago" by Sufjan Stevens Episode 7 "Review" in season 1 begins with a Chicago radio broadcaster announcing, "I'm Lin Brehmer, your best friend in the whole world. It's great to be alive!" Brehmer introduces a demo version of the 2005 Sufjan Stevens song "Chicago," from the Illinoise album. One writer commented about the lyrics, "'You came to take us, all things go, all things go,' sings Sufjan. 'To recreate usall things grow, all things grow.' The audience is nothing if not hopeful about these broken characters and their possibility for growth and recovery in the face of abuse, trauma, and miscommunication. The irony is that this hopeful track sets up one of the most disastrous days at The Beef, making the much-repeated lyric 'I've made a lot of mistakes in my mind' much more appropriate." The song accompanies a montage of Chicago urbanism.
"All Alone on Christmas" by Darlene Love Episode 14 "Fishes" in season 2 uses "All Alone on Christmas," a 1992 single by Phil Spector survivor Darlene Love, for the opening credits.
"The Day the World Went Away" by Nine Inch Nails Episode 17 "Omelette" (also season 2) has opening credits and a sex scene between Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) and Claire Dunlap (Molly Gordon) to a minute excerpt from "The Day the World Went Away," Trent Reznor's "moody masterpiece" from The Fragile, "perhaps intended to convey the idea that, amidst the relentless white noise of modern life, love can elevate the human spirit to transcend obstacles, stresses, and set-backs. LOL. File under 'the calm before the storm'." Screen Rant thought the song choice suggested Carmy "getting swept up in his romance with Claire."
"Save It for Later" by Eddie Vedder
Episode 20 "Next" features a season 3 Chicago-hospitality montage set to "Save It for Later" by Eddie Vedder, who recorded this studio version for The Bear.
As described by American Songwriter, the Vedder version has "more of a quiet, anticipatory lead-up...[not] quite as brash as the original. The English Beat version definitely has more of a brit-rock flavor, while Vedder's version is firmly rooted in U.S. grunge." The song "frequently tap[s] the emotion of scenes that feature Ayo Edebiri's character, Sydney Adamu, facing change." The 1982 Beat version of "Save It for Later" plays when Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) meets up with Chef Shapiro (Adam Shapiro) in "Legacy. The Eddie Vedder version reprises in the season 4 episode "Tonnato," when Carmy visits his mom. Pearl Jam's "Animal," which ends the pilot episode and reappears in the season 2 finale, centers a narrator "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."
Other Vedder songs used on the show are "Come Back," and two versions of "Throw Your Arms Around Me," an Australian-born song that lyrically suggests "both a booty call and a memento mori." The version that plays when the Bears pass the fire-suppression and gas-line tests is a collaboration between Vedder and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn, recorded for the 2013 tribute album Crucible. This music continues playing as Claire kisses Carmy over dinner. A Pearl Jam official bootleg, recorded at a concert in Indiana, plays during Claire and Carmy's conversation at the "Bears" wedding.
Repeated artists
Wilco and Mavis Staples 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." The song "Via Chicago" is used in the pilot episode and in the trailer for season 1.
"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 follows Syd onto the Pink Line to her dad's apartment: "We see the remnants of her failed Sheridan Road Catering business, all piled up in her room, and we see just how close she lives to the El. We also see that, like Carmy, she seems to live, breathe, and dream food, even waking up from a deep sleep to jot something down about a cola short rib braise." All 11 minutes of the Kicking Television: Live in Chicago version of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" play during the "Review" crisis, and "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" reprises briefly in the season 2 finale "The Bear." 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. "I'm Always in Love (Early Run Through)" plays in the season 4 episode "Sophie." "You Are Not Alone" by Mavis Staples, which was written and produced by Jeff Tweedy and recorded at the Wilco loft, 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." "I Like the Things About Me" ends the next episode, "Sundae," "on a strident and self-affirming note."
Kim Deal
Kim Deal's music is used in seasons 1 and 2. "Saints" by the Breeders promises "summer is ready when you are" in episode 2. Sydney begins episode 5 to the sounds of the L Train and the 2013 instrumental version of "Wish I Was". Lyrics like "We will wade in the shine of the ever We will wade in the tides of the summer" from "Velouria" by Pixies inject "tenderness amid the heat and tension" onto the Bear's opening-night playlist.
The Replacements
The Replacements appear in season 2, beginning with "Bastards of Young", 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." 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. "Within Your Reach" from the Hootenany album and the Say Anything... soundtrack surfaces in the season 3 finale.
Taylor Swift
Evie Jerimovich's favorite singer is Taylor Swift, and Swift CDs are on permanent rotation in dad Richie's car CD player. "Love Story (Taylor's Version)" features prominently in "Forks," which Collider ranked fourth on its "top 10 uses of Taylor Swift on TV" list. 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 musicthat'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 songthrough the chorus refrain of 'It's a love story, baby just say yes'carries the feeling as plainly and literally as possible."
"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." Tiff wears friendship bracelets to her wedding-dress fitting, and "Style (Taylor's Version)," originally released on the 1989 album, plays at her wedding.
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. In season 3, Eva sleeps under an Eras Tour blanket, and Richie wears friendship bracelets to work.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross