Music supervisor Nora Felder walks us through some of the most killer tracks of Yellowjackets Season 3.
Between Yellowjackets seasons, music supervisor Nora Felder starts “collecting” music.
“I spend time in my music listening, searching, and I call it, you know, retroactive A&R,” says Felder, “just climbing through the ’90s, current music, and I just start collecting, listening, looking for things that I think are the essence of the show.”
Then once the scripts come rolling in, she has a wealth of songs to choose from.
“I might have gone through hundreds of songs, but I didn’t have the story in my head. So when the story’s in your head, as you’re listening, a lyric might hit you, a theme might hit you, and things might hit you that you missed before, because you didn’t have the story. So I tend to go back through music I’ve collected.”
Yellowjackets Season 3 has many iconic needle drops, and Felder highlights some of her favorite ones and how they came to be.
“Glycerine” by Bush and Anna Waronker and Craig Wedren
This song first plays in Season 3, Episode 1’s “It Girl” during a romantic moment in an alley between Tai (Tawny Cypress) and Van (Lauren Ambrose). Felder says at first the song was out of their budget.
“So Anna Waronker and Craig Wedren are amazing composers. That theme song is what made me say yes to the show when they asked me. [With Glycerine], they were like, ‘Hey, why don’t we do a cover of it?’ So long story short, they created a great cover. But then the music budget evolved, and we realized we did want the original. But then we’re like, well, but we love this cover.”
So while they were shooting Episode 9’s “How the Story Ends,” Felder realized they could put the cover at the end of the episode as a callback.
“It actually seemed perfect that we would use it at the end of this episode, especially after the death and everything that happens. And then to have this current cover of a song, it’s almost a little more kind of romantic in a sweet way. At the end of a very traumatic episode, it was a sweet calling to these two characters and their love story.”
“Rid of Me” by PJ Harvey
At the end of Season 3, Episode 5’s “Did Tai Do That?” Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and Melissa (Jenna Burgess) cut the back of Coach Ben’s legs (Steven Krueger) leaving him unable to walk to this song that Felder says she had wanted to use in Season 2.
“Oh, she was a fun drop to lay. It’s all about the perfect moment. And then when this came up, you know, you can tell that the texture of that song. ‘You’re not rid of me.’ This moment seemed to match up with what Ben was going through. Because at that point, he hasn’t let go yet. He’s still like trying to stay alive.”
“Bae Nosy” by LohArano
Season 3, Episode 6’s “Thanksgiving (Canada)” ends with a mother of all mic drop moments: Three new people stumble upon the Yellowjackets camp after they’ve feasted on Coach Ben, his head on a stake. This song plays as it cuts to the end credits.
“I was in France and I saw his heavy-metal female-fronted band from Madagascar. I met their label rep and said, ‘I love this song!’ Bae Nosy means ‘my special island.’ I don’t know where I could use it, but if I could find a place, I wanted to. I wasn’t sure if everyone is going to get it. LohArano are talking about Madagascar and how they would do anything for their island, but it also means something similar to the Yellowjackets and the wilderness.”
“Fly” by Sugar Ray
In Season 3, Episode 7’s “Croak,” we meet the team of scientists studying frogs as they smoke weed and listen to this chillaxing jam.
“I thought, I am gonna pick something that was a huge hit that has nothing to do with the wilderness. The people in the wilderness probably didn’t even know it was a hit yet. And it was perfect because it really accented that there are other people here. It provides such contrast in what our Yellowjackets have become.”
“The Mystery of Love” by Marianne Faithfull
This is one of Felder’s favorite drops in the season finale when Tai buries Van.
“That was not one of her known songs, you know, like the label here didn’t even know they represented it when I reached out about it. But that one meant a lot just because, you know, when I had that song in my arsenal, and I’m like, it’s really gonna have to be a very specific moment. I don’t know if one will come up or not. I have a lot of songs like that, where they’re just so specific that you’re not really sure. But when when something happens, it’s great. So when that moment came up, we tried things that everyone agreed, and I pitched it, and they agreed that that was by far the best one. And then, you know, months later, we found out about [Faithfull’s] passing, it was like we got to honor her in some way.”
Yellowjackets Season 3 is streaming on Paramount+.
