The 15 Best Hits on the ‘Yellowjackets’ Soundtrack, Ranked!

Yellowjackets has one of the best soundtracks on television right now. Staying true to half of the series’ late ’90s setting, the show is always sure to sample period-appropriate songs.

The Yellowjackets playlist ranges from pop to grunge, a mix that complements the series’ broad tonal shifts from folk horror to black comedy. With its third season wrapped up, what are the Yellowjackets needle drops that’ll never leave this hive’s ears?

Unfortunately, “all of them” isn’t much of an answer, so it’s time to zoom in and pick out the best of the very best — the grungiest, the scariest, and most ear-shattering tracks on the Yellowjackets soundtrack.

Here are our picks for the 15 best “Yellowjackets” needle-drops, ranked!

15. Just A Girl, covered by Florence + The Machine (Yellowjackets Season 2 trailer)

Ahead of its second season, Yellowjackets recruited Florence + The Machine to lend some music to the show. Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 7, “Burial,” features the band’s songs Free and Dream Girl Evil.

But Florence + The Machine’s best song in the show only made it into the advertising: a cover of No Doubt’s Just A Girl, played in the second season’s trailer. Florence Welch imbues the song with her trademark witchiness, opening it with keystrokes of a piano backed only to the emptiness of cold wind. 

The song’s lyrics, which made it a sardonic pop anthem, stay untouched, but backed by Welch’s vocals and instrumentals, it becomes ominous and foreboding. The Yellowjackets are just girls, but that doesn’t stop them from becoming savages.

14. Mother Mother by Tracey Bonham (Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 2)

Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 2, “F Sharp,” is Misty Quigley’s (Samantha Hanratty/Christina Ricci) time to shine. The episode opens with the immediate aftermath of the plane crash. The girls wade through the wreckage, trying (and some failing) to escape obvious hazards like fires and debris.

Of the survivors, Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger) took the worst hit, with a wing of the plane landing on and crushing his right leg. Without missing a beat, Misty (who has medical training) finds an axe and amputates Ben’s shattered leg. The teaser ends with a close-up of Misty’s blood-splattered face over the opening of Mother Mother: “I’m hungry! I’m dirty! I’m losing my mind, everything’s fine!”

The song cuts off there, but those opening sounds are enough. The lyrics, of course, quite accurately sum up the Yellowjackets’ predicament, and Bonham’s vocals complement Misty’s new confidence.

13. Lightning Crashes by Live (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 7)

Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 7, “Burial,” is a challenging episode for Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), who is still mourning her stillborn son. Her grief turns to rage after she loses her best friend and baby only months apart. 

Lottie (Courtney Eaton) lets Shauna beat her so she can expel that anger. The beatdown is scored to Lightning Crashes, a song about the cycle of birth, life, and death. Aside from referencing Shauna as a mother-not-to-be, the soothing guitar melody accentuates each punch Shauna lands. 

The scene is crosscut with the Yellowjackets’ adult counterparts dancing by a bonfire in the snow. Both versions of the characters love and hurt each other, so a song about violent contrasts is perfect.

12. Fade Into You by Mazzy Star (Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 8)

During Yellowjackets Season 1, Jackie (Ella Purnell) has her eyes set on Travis (Kevin Alves) — the only available boy for hundreds of miles — but he’s already connecting with Natalie (Sophie Thatcher). So Jackie whispers poison in Travis’ ear, and at the beginning of Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 8, “Flight of the Bumblebee,” he declines hunting with Natalie.

While walking out of the cabin, Teen Natalie transitions to the adult Natalie (Juliette Lewis). She’s applying eyeliner and dancing around her motel room, scored to the dreamy “Fade Into You.” The dulcet sounds are comforting, but the lyrics tell a story of yearning and unrequited love. 

In the past, Natalie feels rejected by Travis. In the present, his death still weighs unbearably hard on Natalie’s mind and heart.

11. Something In The Way by Nirvana (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 7)

On Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 4, “Bear Down,” a young Natalie mentioned her love for Nirvana. Given that and the ’90s setting, it was only a matter of time before a song of theirs made it onto the soundtrack. When it did, it didn’t disappoint. 

Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 7, “Burial,” has the unenviable task of picking up from a devastating cliffhanger on Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 6, “Qui,” when Shauna woke to find her baby stillborn. So, the episode opens with a montage of the Yellowjackets silently sitting around their adopted cabin home, showing that days later, they’re all still miserable and mourning.

The montage is set to Nirvana’s Something In The Way. That song is often recognized as a song about despair and solitude, two feelings the Yellowjackets have in abundance—especially in the moment it plays.

10. Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney (Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 8)

Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 8, “A Normal Boring Life,” ended any doubt that Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) is the most unhinged character on the show. She’s been getting worse and worse in the Wilderness, and at the end of this episode, she lets out her old self by biting a chunk of Melissa’s (Hilary Swank) arm off, holding it over her, and demanding she eat it.

The episode’s last shot shows Shauna’s bloodied face as Dig Me Out, the eponymous track from the Sleater-Kinney album, starts to play. The song plays over the entire credits, and its rip-roaring rock ‘n’ roll is such a pleasant sound that your eyes will stay glued to the screen. 

Dig Me Out centers around the recurring refrain, “Dig me out, dig me in,” both “out of my head” and “out of my skin.” This refrain fits Shauna’s arc of paranoia and burying her worst self beneath a boring soccer mom persona.

9. Rid of Me by PJ Harvey (Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 5)

Natalie met her demise during Yellowjackets Season 2, but Juliette Lewis’ performance will always overshadow the show. Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 5, “Did Tai Do That,” includes a song that Miss Lewis has sung — Rid Of Me, originally and more famously by PJ Harvey.

After a Wilderness vision from Akilah (Nia Sondaya), the girls decide to give Coach Scott a stay of execution. But he’s still their prisoner, and Shauna and Melissa (Jenna Burgess) sever his Achilles tendon to keep him even more immobile. Ben’s screams fade into Rid Of Me, and the song carries over into an overhead shot of the girls’ camp and the end credits. 

Rid Of Me is a song about a woman forcibly hanging onto her boyfriend, who wants to break up, and bragging that she’ll stay tied “till you say don’t you wish you, never, never, never met her!” It’s a fitting summation of Ben’s imprisonment and the Yellowjackets’ continued descent into darkness.

8. Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 9)

Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 9, “Storytelling,” featured the series’ most controversial decision thus far: Natalie’s death, accidentally killed by Misty while saving her young, wayward friend Lisa (Nicole Maines). 

Natalie sees her death as a near-empty plane ride, with Javi (Luciano Leroux), her teenage self, and Lottie sitting next to her to ease her ride into the end. The death scene is set to Street Spirit (Fade Out). 

Thom Yorke’s tenor voice lends itself to sad songs, and the lyrics especially fit Natalie’s fate. The chorus of “fade out again” reflects Natalie slowly slipping away, while the final words of “immerse your soul in love” offer hope that Natalie achieved some redemption in the end.

Van’s (Lauren Ambrose) death on Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 9 “How The Story Ends” mirrors Natalie’s, with the same plane setting and a different Radiohead song: “Exit Music (For A Film).” This one comes close, but it’s still ultimately an echo of the season 2 Radiohead needle-drop.

7. Be There by Low (Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 6)

One of the few friendships that remained largely intact during the Yellowjackets’ time in the Wilderness was Natalie and Coach Scott’s. Their mutual trust culminated in one of the show’s most heartbreaking moments.

In Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 6, “Thanksgiving (Canada),” the starving, imprisoned Ben begs Natalie for a mercy killing. She repeatedly refuses him, but after the Yellowjackets try force-feeding him, she gives in.

The low percussion of Be There cements the sad inevitability of Natalie’s decision. Her face is crumbling into tears while Ben has a face of relieved acceptance; the song is quiet enough that you notice it playing, but not so much that it distracts the scene. The song, which comes from the album Songs for a Dead Pilot, describes someone wishing to avoid difficult moments, but that’s precisely what Natalie is refusing to do.

6. Bullet With Butterfly Wings by Smashing Pumpkins (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 8)

Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 8, “It Chooses,” finally features the girls becoming real hunters — they’re chasing the most dangerous game like we always knew they would. Desperate for food and to trade the Wilderness for Lottie’s life, they devise a card draw game: the loser is meat.

Natalie picks the doom card, and the chase is on. Bullet With Butterfly Wings opens with singer Billy Corgan declaring: “The world is a vampire.” He meant it in a Gen X malaise kind of way, but it’s even more creepily true for a blood sacrifice ritual.

The rest of the song is about feeling trapped and angry. Moreover, its instrumentals and Corgan’s charged vocals have an intense propulsive energy. These qualities fuse into a perfect needle drop for the girls hunting Natalie.

5. Livin’ On The Edge by Aerosmith (Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 10)

Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 10, “Full Circle,” concludes on an unfamiliar note for this show: victory. Sneaking away from an evening feast, Natalie hikes up the mountains with Hannah (Ashley Sutton), and Edwin’s (Nelson Franklin) repaired SAT phone — and she gets a signal. 

The scene is set to Livin’ On The Edge, which fits in a few key ways. (Not just because Natalie is standing over the edge of a cliff.)

One, the Yellowjackets (now in their second Wilderness winter), have definitely been living on the edge of civilization, morality, and humanity. But while the song’s lyrics can sound sad especially the opening, “There’s something wrong with the world today,” the song’s sound is loud and exciting. 

Natalie, who the Wilderness has shaped into the most resourceful and compassionate survivor, finally scores an overdue (if inevitable) win. The song’s soaring sounds are the perfect way to celebrate that.

4. Climbing Up The Walls by Radiohead (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 2)

Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 2, “Edible Complex,” ends with the teenage survivors finally submitting to their hunger, eating the corpse of the half-cremated, fully-roasted Jackie. 

The girls (and Travis) block out the reality of their actions by imagining a great feast before them. Similarly, the sound of the Yellowjackets chewing and gorging is muffled under the musical score Climbing Up The Walls. Once again, Thom Yorke’s soft and sound voice fits the scene, but this time, because the scene’s context makes it sound extra creepy. 

“Climbing Up The Walls” has been interpreted as a song about dealing with inner demons, and the lyrics also suggest the inescapability of those demons. In this moment, to survive and keep climbing up those metaphorical walls, the Yellowjackets have to sink to the level of their worst selves.

3. Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1)

Cornflake Girl plays over a montage that closes out Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen.” It’s a haunting song that touches on the futility of denying bad things. “This is not really happening; you bet your life it is” fits like a glove describing the surrealism of the Yellowjackets going from high school girls to cannibal cultists. 

The lyrics of the song are applied very literally. Take how “things are getting kind of gross” plays as Shauna takes a bite of Jackie’s frozen, broken-off ear, preceding the feeding frenzy to follow. But the on-the-nose mixing speaks to how this is one of the most precise and perfect needle-drops in all of Yellowjackets. 

Cornflake Girl is a song about fraught female friendships, the defining theme of Yellowjackets. It’d be a downright oversight if the show hadn’t included it, and the place where it does pop up is perfect. 

A “Cornflake girl” is a friend who will throw you under the bus if it benefits them. The song compares this to Raisin girls, the much rarer reliable friends. (Of the Yellowjackets, only Natalie comes close to qualifying.) Shauna and Jackie would probably label the other a Cornflake girl while believing themselves pure Raisin girls.

2. Zombie by the Cranberries (Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 9)

The Cranberries stand next to Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins as one of Yellowjackets’ favorite bands. The show’s best needle-drop for the Irish band has to be in Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 9, “Storytelling.” Zombie begins the episode on the right, bleak note.

The song’s mournful rock guitar riff plays on a moving close-up of Natalie. She’s still in shock over Javi’s death, which she allowed so she could live. The guilt is eating her up inside, and the music conveys that.

Zombie was written in 1994 in response to the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. The song bemoans violence and suggests that those who experience that violence can be left as zombies. Natalie surely was.

1. Down By The Water by PJ Harvey (Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 1)

The first time this show proved how well it can use music was in its debut episode, Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot.” The night before the flight, which will change all their lives for the worse, the girls attend an outdoor keg party. 

Natalie takes LSD and, staring into a bonfire, spots an apparition of Misty. The scene crosscuts to a different bonfire, about 18 months away, where the now-savage Yellowjackets will cook and eat one of their teammates. 

The montage is all set to Down By The Water, a song about a delusional mother who drowns her child in the river and tries to save her. PJ Harvey’s chilling whispers, “Little fish, big fish, swimming in the water, come back here and give me my daughter,” play over close-ups of the meat and the animal-masked hunters. 

Still, Natalie’s bonfire trip (which we know now was her foreseeing her death) proved that  Yellowjackets won’t need cannibalism to be scary. All it needs is the right song.

Yellowjackets streams on Paramount+ with Showtime.

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