The best songs in The Bear, season 4

Make the connection. Whether intentionally or blindly accidentally, the hit Emmy-winning series The Bear has Anthony Bourdain’s DNA stitched into its underbelly. This show about food, dubbed Chaos Menu, is the MacGuffin for something larger even as ratings dip, The Bear got a 100 percent rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes for the first season, 99 for the second, 89 for season 3, and 82 for this fourth season.

We’ve seen people, in the show, change. Grow. Evolve. Those are the metaphors, not flighty popularity tomatoes, to embrace. What Bourdain’s many TV shows—he had a couple of series after the books, fully monetizing his late career popularity (respect), all boiled down to this: Becoming a better human.

The Bear is a psychotic comedy-drama streaming series that America love-hates. It’s become the dividing point in this country that we don’t have a problem discussing with family over Thanksgiving dinner. Jeremy Allen White in his expensive t-shirts stars as Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage the chaotic kitchen at his deceased brother’s Italian beef sandwich shop. A role done with touching flashbacks from the enigmatic Jon Berenthal. Add to it a powerhouse supporting cast featuring Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Lionel Boyce, Liza Colón-Zayas, Abby Elliott, Matty Matheson, and Edwin Lee Gibson, whose characters are all on this journey of self-improvement. But the real main character? Needle drops. 

For the first three seasons, The Bear consisted of a strictly Dad-bod with a stache,  rock-adjacent earworms diet. R.E.M., Mike and The Mechanics, vanilla me so good tracks that put fans next to Courtney Cox in the front row of a fictitious Springsteen concert circa 85, doing it. Ya know? Dancin’ in the Dark?

But in season 4, showrunner Christopher Storer gets to the series’ turning point by weaving characters’ moods, ideas, and shortcomings through a masterwork score of popular and obscure songs, which dance to an emotion, action, or subtext of a setting. Large swings are made here that connect. Eclectic vibes tell an elaborate and succinct narrative, involving a sense of place, deep admiration for the city of Chicago, where the Bear takes place, and commits to a grimy digging in the crates regimen that rarely sinks the scene. Keeping fans of the show and straight up record junkies (ahem), on their youtube triggering quickdraw. This is your Sopranos Sunday night prestige television teaser strung out on Chicago Jagoff pop.

Storer is cooking movie magic, ’tis a thing of beauty.  I’ll take my escapism from the real world on fire anyway I can get it, Chef. Even if it means listening to all the frisky audio moves a show about Chicago Beef can muster. So let’s run down some of the most unique, how the hell did they do that, needle drops this side of a Spike Lee, Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson film fest. I’d buy that ticket, too.

Tangerine Dream – “Diamond Diary”

What a way to call your shot. In the first episode of the fourth season, showrunner Christopher Storer starts with Led Zep, moves to The Who, and then brazenly places not just a Tangerine Dream song in the return of his hit streaming show. No, he gets upfront Chicagoan. Points at the fences and Aaron Judges it. Cocky bugger. Storer purposely selects a song that epitomizes the archetype Michael Mann film Thief, starring James Caan, Jim Belushi, and Tuesday Weld. A mid- to high-brow definitive photoplay from 1981, set in Chicago, that would eventually lead Mann to make his seminal De Niro versus Pacino communique of all time, Heat in 1995. 

“Diamond Diary,” part cocaine binge, part Tom Cruise losing his cinematic virginity anthem, it has Risky Business sex-on-a-late-night-train vibes, is a bouquet soundbath, 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.

Talk Talk – “Life’s What You Make It”

In ’86, I was stuck on Run-DMC’s first album, grooving to the weird funk of Parade, a post-Purple Rain adventure from Prince, and grabbing hold of that Unforgettable Fire coming from U2. Hearing the musings on life’s potential through short quips, and from a band that named themselves Talk Talk? Ahh, Nope. Didn’t register a blip for me back then. But the 2002 Grand Theft Auto soundtrack put it and them on my oldies to revisit list. 

So hearing this strident, yet brutal slice of advice in Episode 2 of The Bear, a show loaded by design with characters, full of regret, constantly in the grips of dealing with loss. Those dirgey piano lines, booming drum track, anthemic earworm of a guitar squall flapping in the wind as we all try our damnedest to maneuver down the road of life. Whew…It releases some type of unspoken weight, energizing this dysfunctional TV family to charge on, no matter their collective inner turmoil. You watch this staff rebound from a dismal restaurant review, and they commit to getting better from the adversity. Such a time-bending piece of production, soul-crushing and empowering.  

Ballsy choice. So spot on. Long live Talk Talk.

Curtis Mayfield – “So In Love”

Curtis Mayfield was born in Chicago. In a solo episode featuring Sydney “Syd” Adamu, Carmy’s partner in the restaurant on The Bear, played by Ayo Edebiri, we see Syd getting her hair braided by a close friend while reconnecting with her friend’s daughter in a warm, aunt-like manner. The episode includes jokes about code-switching and details about Black hair care, but its main focus is on how working in different parts of the city can feel like being worlds apart.

On this particular day, in a predominantly Black Chi-town neighborhood, Syd visits local shops to gather ingredients for a meal for her niece, while, her friend is out buying hair. That’s real people. IYKYK. The background music, Mayfield’s “So In Love,” evokes a sense of home, grounding Syd’s character and reminding us that within one city, there exists a diverse array of communities, not just a predominantly white one.

The Pretenders – “Mystery Achievement”

I caught the energetic and still candid 72-year-old Chrissie Hynde last year in concert. Every time I look at that first Pretenders album or hear each song played in order—it’s a no-skips album—it’s Hynde who will have to replace the whole band in a decade because of the effects of drug addiction. Do you know how damn tough you have to be to do that?

Tough. That’s exactly what Chrissie Hynde embodies—grit and determination amid chaos. When “Mystery Achievement” bursts up and into the teleplay, quick intercuts of fast kitchen preparations, locked into the powerful heartbeat drum hits, it marks the arrival of a newly revitalized Bear restaurant team, fully prepared to confront every challenge, both new and old, that they must overcome to achieve their true potential. They know they can soar to new heights. Storer recognizes that Chrissie is a force to be reckoned with.

Dion – “Only You Know”

Bangers all around this season, from various eras of popular song. To pull a Dion song out of the bag, it must resonate with balladry, sweetness, remorse, and a yearning for resolution.

“Only You Know” feels like that ’70s 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. The episode features the restaurant team making wishes come true for both their customers and themselves. The staff gets to witness the rewards of their hard work through the eyes of a cancer-free patron and a potential restaurant critic who enjoys everything the team has to offer. It’s a corny, sweet, and emotional moment that highlights, despite how tired the characters may be this season, the musical narrative is working hard. Serving up all the feels.