BEAR SOUNDS 

A rundown of the Music that Drives The Bear 

This piece is about the television show “The Bear” on Hulu, but right up front I want to say there are no spoiler alerts in here.  I am only going to explore the musical score of this brilliant series without giving away any pivotal moments within it.  First, if you are not watching “The Bear”, you should be.  I know that’s very cliche for fans of a show to say, but in this case its true.  Here is a quick synopsis of the show: “The Bear” is a dark comedy/drama series set in Chicago.  It’s about a world-renowned and well-traveled chef who returns home, to take control of his family’s sandwich shop, “The Beef”, after his brother’s death. The show was created by Christopher Storer, and stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, who works to change the disheveled kitchen staff into Michelin Star-level chefs, all the while dealing with personal grief and the restaurant’s building debt.  It’s fast paced and exciting, but also very triggering to anyone who has worked in the industry as well, yours truly included. However, this is not an article about the show entirely, rather it is an exploration into the music choices that help paint an exemplary score to the series.   

Sometimes, I feel that music in shows, is forced.  I’ve heard good songs in many shows before, but never have I heard near perfect tunes placed in the architecture of a script that help define that particular scene.  My friend, and writer, Andrea Roy went down this rabbit hole of music in film many years ago when she wrote about “Easy Rider” and the films introduction to music that wasn’t written for the film, but rather popular songs edited into the story telling. Up until that point films hired musicians, composers and sometimes full orchestras to write and perform melodies that specifically fit to the movie itself.   

Then we changed things up.  More recently, the soundtrack is just as important as the writing and dialogue.  Movie soundtracks are often declared to be just as good or better than the actual movie itself.  I started to go the rabbit hole on this topic via the internet and I agreed with some but was in harsh contention with other choice.  So, I’m not going to investigate that topic here, but maybe that’s another article, “Soundtracks That Outshined the Film”. 

“The Bear” does better than most in the fact that the song choices are poignant and do not overpower the scene.  What I mean is, that they are not just dubbed over the top and cause the viewer to be distracted by the sounds and miss dialogue or worse even, that dialogue cannot existed because the music is intended to be more centric and the highlight of a particular take. When you watch this series, the music is there to help declare a foundation for a scene, book end a memory, or just gently dance as a whisper in the background.  You know it’s there and it becomes a garish of sorts that helps transcend the dish. What I was curious about, was who was making me feel this kind of way?  Who was the author of this inventive tone making model of excellence. 

Turns out that the masterminds are nonother than the show’s creator Christopher Storer, age 43, and executive producer Josh Senior. “We became the music supervisors out of just desperation,” Storer explained to UPROXX. “We were like, ‘Let’s save some money and just do it ourselves.’” And boy have they done that well.   

Season 1 is probably the most direct in its musical composition and spoke to me immediately as a Gen X kid who graduated from high school in 1992. The opening phase of the program hits us with Pearl Jam’s “Animal”, R.E.M. “Oh My Heart”, and Radiohead with “Let Down” to close the season finale. Other classic alternative 90’s playlists emerge throughout with dashes of LCD Soundsystem, Van Morrison and a gripping scene with Genesis’ hit “Too Deep”.   Chicago native, Wilco makes a euphonic appearance in a knuckle whitening and heart racing moment, dropping their live version of “Spiders” into the mix.  However, you also get those classic deep cuts of “Da Doo Ron Ron” by the Crystals and “Help Me Rhonda” by The Beach Boys.  There are also so many gems in this show too and I’ll post an entire playlist in here somewhere. The song for me that fits into a scene best, for me, is Andrew Bird’s “Sisyphus”.  Sisyphus was known for his punishment in the underworld. His eternal task was to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down before he could reach the top. This futile and repetitive labor has become a symbol of the somewhat absurd nature of what we go through as human beings at various points of our lives and is a constant theme of the show.  Andrew’s lyrics “Did he jump or did he fall as he gazed into the maw of the morning mist?/ Did he raise both fists and say, “To hell with this, ” and just let the rock roll?” match the subject matter faultlessly. 

It’s the placement of the music that matters so much too.  Also, the way it will fade in and out of a situation is nothing shy of magical.  A song might start well before a striking point but just barely exist in the background, lingering within a hum.  The volume rises up when it needs to match the emotion, then fades, and then up again for the climax, then it’s gone.  However, the score never steals the scene and that’s what I truly appreciate. 

In Season 2 our musical guides kept some of the same artists and involved them in different proportions.  There is less Wilco and more R.E.M. this time and this variation helps to inform the singular world of the show and the personality of the characters. As season one was very much geared towards the restaurant and general ideas, now we learn more about the individuals and what tends to make them tick. With that the music becomes a bit more specialized. 

The season opener is “The Show Goes On” sung by Bruce Hornsby and it sounds like a natural selection, and it is. I also get my late 80’s and 90’s fix through Counting Crows, Fine Young Cannibals, The Psychedelic Furs, The Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Pixies and Liz Phair to name most. And there’s Taylor Swift and you think as you read this that maybe this is our jump the shark moment, but it’s not.  The use of “Love Song (Taylors Version)” must be the choice for the moment.  I said NO SPOILERS and I’ll stand by it, so you need to watch to see the true depth of this song, for this framework in developing a character change and it works.  It works you to tears. 

Christopher and Josh definitely dug deeper in season two (probably because season one was so hyped) so they added a wider ranger bringing Mavis Staples “You Are Not Alone”, Squeeze, Otis Redding, Refused “New Noise”, Andy Williams and Pretenders into the fray.  The star of the song listing for me is the Ramones with “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight)” because of the when it is used. It’s a well-crafted bit of foreshadowing for the episode as Ramones‘ yuletide punk song rings in time with a sauce splattered cooking timer that rings incessantly trough the episode.  

We are onto Season 3. We see a new vision, and possibilities for rebirth and growth and an uncertain future for many of the players.  The restaurant has a new look (not a spoiler), but old tendencies are sometimes unbreakable.  This is Episode 1 of the third installation which is created with flashbacks plus “real time” and a Nine Inch Nails extended version of the dreamlike electric piano and synth driven song “Together”.  It is very much hauntingly stunning the way that the show needs very little dialogue for 37 minutes as the audience is floated down this path of engagement, as the music continues like fog across a lake, with our characters psychological well-being and decision-making being decided in the mind of the onlooker for now. 

Who does that?  Who says we are going to make a nearly 40-minute music video as an episode?  Christopher Storer and Josh Senior is who and it’s yet another reason to binge this series if you already haven’t.  

Then in Episode 2 there comes a cover I am officially in love with, which is Eddie Vedder crooning “Save It For Later” by The English Beat (as they were referred to in the US.  Just The Beat in the UK).  Upbeat in tempo yet daunting lyrically, it encapsulates the atmosphere of our restaurateurs. The season finale is the most needle-drop heavy of them all, with James‘ “Laid” getting the biggest play, but the episode also uses songs by The Sundays, The Replacements, and David Bowie, plus Susanna Hoffs’ cover of Oingo Boingo’s “We Close Our Eyes” and some of Tangerine Dream‘s score for Michael Mann’s Thief. Season 3 goes out with Smashing Pumpkins‘ “Disarm” over the closing credits. If you are unfamiliar, a ‘Needle Drop’ is an industry slang term for when film/tv makers use a piece of popular music as one of the main focal points of a sequence – moments where audio and visuals become forever interlinked.  

It’s all so pretty and I want more, and they leave everyone wanting more and the show comes to an end and the words “To be continued…” dance across our blackened screen.  I personally cannot wait for the inception of a new season and new musical wonderments from the show’s creator and executive producer.  They may have cut on costs, but they made up for it in content.  Here’s that l listing I proposed earlier. There are over 130 songs in all. Enjoy the listen or the watch or both.  Cheers!