It’s only the end of Ozark’s first episode, but in the face of altering his family’s life forever, the usually poker-faced Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is on the verge of surrender. Composing himself as he rests in the woods of rural Missouri, the in-over-his-head money launderer finds momentary peace glancing at a tranquil lake. Suddenly, his family joins him, and Radiohead’s “Decks Dark” creeps in, its haunting keys and Thom Yorke’s lithely delicate vocals emitting a calm yet grim acceptance of a new normal — a soundtrack for the condemned and a thematic throughline for Ozark.
“There’s a heaviness to certain songs,” says Ozark music supervisor Gabe Hilfer. “Radiohead has that.” Hilfer, who helped craft the sound of shows like The Walking Dead and Supergirl, made sure Ozark had it, too.
Searching through a cache of memories and opinions for songs that underscore the humanity of the crime drama, he and Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy, a former Rolling Stone journalist, pieced together an eclectic mix of folk, rock, soul and hip-hop that helped accentuate some of the most poignant — and most shocking — moments of the sun-setting show, capturing just the right emotion at just the right time. For the Byrdes, this often meant songs that evoked serenity in an otherwise chaotic world.
“When [the Byrde family is] listening to a song in the car and it was Sam Cooke, it was meant to be warm and beautiful and put the audience at ease,” shares Hilfer.
Marty Byrde faces a life or death moment in Season 1, Episode 1.
In the instances when they weren’t in the car, foreboding tunes soundtracked their purgatorial situation, with Episode 2 of Season 2 pairing a vicious shooting with an ominously titled country song called “Waiting Around to Die.” Delivered over forlorn acoustic guitar strings, Townes Van Zandt’s lyrics are the sound of existential dread: “Sometimes I don’t know where/ This dirty road is taking me/ Sometimes I can’t even see the reason why I guess I keep a-gamblin’/ Lots of booze and lots of ramblin’/ It’s easier than just waitin’ around to die.”
While the song placement is eerily symbolic, it’s also perfectly pragmatic, its title an accurate description for life as a glorified hostage. “From the very first episode, it’s life or death,” says Hilfer. “There is a weight to the entire show.” Throughout its run, Hilfer and Mundy used different genres to distribute that heft.
For example, ’90s rap throwbacks became the sonic template for Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), a burgeoning criminal mastermind (whether she wants to be or not). “Once we established Ruth’s themes of hip hop, we [wanted to get to] what was the point of every song?” says Hilfer. Many of those points were made implicitly. While the rural trappings of the Ozarks don’t conjure images of the concrete jungle, Ruth’s criminal activities and her quest to rise above them offer an obvious parallel to the works of aspirational drug dealers turned rappers, speaking to a lived experience she can identify with. “I think in her mind, there’s a true authenticity to it, and it’s aligned with her worldview,” says Mundy.
Ruth Langmore stares down a fortune in Season 4, Part 2, Episode 2.
Heading into the fourth and final season, Mundy sought to further infuse that music into Ruth’s storyline. During the pandemic, he called Hilfer to discuss his idea to have her listen to The Notorious B.I.G.’s debut album, Ready to Die, as she grieved the loss of a loved one. Remembering that they’d used Biggie songs in Season 2, Hilfer steered Mundy to Nas’ Illmatic instead. “He called me back maybe a couple weeks later, and he was like, ‘Holy shit, you’re right,’ ” says Hilfer, who calls Illmatic his favorite rap LP ever.
With the decision made, multiple songs from Nas’ epic maiden album soundtrack Ruth’s journey toward vengeance on a certain ruthless drug cartel member. In a key scene from Season 4, Episode 8, Ruth, weary from hours of driving and recent tragedy, clasps her phone as she soaks up the sounds of “N.Y. State of Mind” in a Chicago cafe. Moments later, she has a shocking chance encounter with Run The Jewels member Killer Mike, one of her favorite artists. Naturally, she gives Mike his props before reflecting on the song, one you get the sense she couldn’t help but relate to. “You know, it always feels to me like he hates it and he misses it all at once,” Ruth says of Nas’ connection to his hometown. “He’s only fucking 20.” From there, Mike offers up his own takeaway: “You know, when I listen to that record, his projects are in Queens and you can kinda see Manhattan, and I always thought it was so hopeful and fucking cruel at the same time,” he says, evoking the fate of the seemingly cursed Langmore family.
Killer Mike as himself in Season 4, Part 2, Episode 1 of Ozark.
“[Mundy] pitched me the idea of a [Killer Mike] cameo, and I connected him with management,” Hilfer remembers. “For the real nerds out there, Killer Mike’s manager is one of the guys at the table sitting in the restaurant.”
“It was just contextualizing for her this kind of big, deep past that she's going into,” says Mundy. It was also another way of infusing the show with more hip-hop.
But Season 4’s Episode 8 wasn’t the first time Killer Mike popped up on the show. DJ Shadow’s RTJ collaboration “Nobody Speaks” was featured in Episode 3 of Season 1 when Ruth revealed her plan to kill then frenemy Marty, and RTJ’s 2020 single “Ohh La La” served as the ironic yet exhilarating closing song following Helen’s (Janet McTeer) macabre execution at the end of Season 3. “We like to have fun with music and do stuff that makes the audience able to digest a gruesome murder like that almost with a wink,” says Hilfer.
Sifting through genres and time, themes and emotions, Hilfer and Mundy found ways to tap into the soul of Ozark, coloring despair with flashes of hope and scabrous violence with traces of dark humor. “There [are] moments of levity and moments of winks, and it’s obviously fun as well in certain aspects,” Hilfer says. “So, the music reflects that.” Sounds about right.
Grab your headphones and check out every song Ozark ever used below.
“Decks Dark” — Radiohead “Whilin” — DecadeZ “Dear Love of Mine” — Daniel Spaleniak “Still the Same” — Bob Seger “Nobody Speak” — DJ Shadow ft. Run the Jewels “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” — The Rolling Stones “Do What You Want” — Cheerleader “Little Girl” — Arroyo “Get It All” — DecadeZ “Don’t Worry Tracy” — Christopher Blue “Prolly” — Mr.Robotic “Lovin’ Days” — Denney and the Jets “Bet You Thought I Was” — R E L “Old Folks Home” — TAB The Band “Old Dream” — Paul Bergmann “She Got a Mind” — Natural Child “Waiting for You” — Coyote Kisses ft. Madison Love “GO!” — SweatBeatz “Black Beatles” — Rae Sremmurd “You’re So Good for Me” — Lenny Mack Band “Now and Then” — Natural Child “That’ll Be the Day” — Buddy Holly, The Crickets “Free Throw” — The Mezcals “Grab As Much (As You Can)” — The Black Angels “Love Is Alive” — Gary Wright
“Summer Wind” — Frank Sinatra “Hush 2” — Atlantic Haze “I Got a Story to Tell” — Biggie Smalls or The Notorious B.I.G. “Somebody’s Gotta Die” — Biggie Smalls or The Notorious B.I.G. “The Eyes of Midnight” — Ethan Burns with the Ragged Jubilee “Waiting Around to Die” — Townes Van Zandt “Eyes That Kill” — CooBee Coo “Stoned and Alone” — Findlay “Give Me Time” — Circus “Rehab” — Amy Winehouse “You Already Know”—Dres “Ski Mask” — Atlantic Haze ft. Los Moonwalker & Sahtyre “Uncontrollable”— Key Man “Moon Landing”— North of South “Freak Like Me” — NoMBe “Hooligan”— ChildsPlay “Shotgun” — Jr. Walker & the All Stars “Sweet Thing” — Johnny Newbag “Love Is an Illusion” — Ronnie Walker “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” — Marvin Gaye “Superman Lover” — Johnny “Guitar” Watson “I Wanna Be (Your Everything)” — The Manhattans “Wichita Lineman” — Glen Campbell “Black It Out” — Chizzy “Wifey” — Qveen Herby “Oh Girl” — The Chi-Lites “Brandy” — Looking Glass “Make It with You” — Scantron “Drip Drop” — Dion
“India Catalina” — La Sonora Dinamita “Presagio” — La Sonora Dinamita “Bebey (SN1 Road Mix)” — Theophilus London ft. Giggs “The Daily Mail” — Radiohead “Come and Get Your Love” — Redbone “C.R.E.A.M.” — Wu-Tang Clan “Time for Me to Fly” — REO Speedwagon “The Fundamentals” — Arthur Ahbez “Get It Out”— Flashback Reunion “Bésame Mucho” — Tino Rossi “Brujerizmo” — Brujeria “Revolucion” — Brujeria “Full Clip” — Gang Starr “Have Love Will Travel” — The Sonics “Jack’s White Stripes” — Ethan Burns with the Ragged Jubilee “I’d Rather Go Blind” — Etta James “Fancy” — Bobbie Gentry “The Wild Kindness” — Silver Jews “Only You Know” — Dion “Piece of Me” — Lady Wray “New King of the Mountain” — The Romany Rye “Paid in Full” — Eric B. & Rakim “Ooh La La” — Run the Jewels ft. Greg Nice & DJ Premier)
“Bring It On Home to Me” — Sam Cooke “Tierra Mexicana” — C-Kan “Brillo” — NIÑA DIOZ “Vehicle” — The Ides of March “Can I Kick It?” — A Tribe Called Quest “Bam Bam” — Sister Nancy “How Lonesome Can I Get” — Durwood Daily Haddock “11/8 SYM” — Fera “Dreams” — Scantron “Untitled” — Killer Mike “U See It” — T-Flex “Ça plane pour moi (Original 1977 Version)” — Plastic Bertrand “Weepin Willow Tree” — Gwynn Michaels “A Lot” — 21 Savage featuring J. Cole “Childlike” — Extreme Music “Namuh” — Elvin Jones “My Evil Mind” — Jack Cook “I Feel Like I’m In Love Again” — Tacoma “You Bore Me” — Husky Loops “Here in Spirit” — Jim James “I Feel Sanctified” — The Commodores “N.Y. State of Mind” — Nas “Represent” — Nas “Life’s a Bitch” — Nas ft. AZ & Olu Dara “One Time 4 Your Mind” — Nas “Can It Be All So Simple” — Wu-Tang Clan “If I Could” — Spanky Wilson “New King of The Mountain” — The Romany Rye “Brother” — The Romany Rye “Energy” — Sampa The Great ft. Nadeem Din-Gabisi “My Desire” — WITCH “I Saw the Light” — Todd Rundgren “Right Down the Line” — Gerry Rafferty “Renegade” — Styx “Twilight Zone” — Golden Earring “Bring It on Home to Me” — Sam Cooke “They Reminisce Over You” — Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth “Love and Happiness” — Al Green
