Every Song in Wayward on Netflix: The Complete Soundtrack Revealed

Mae Martin has swerved hard from Feel Good into darker territory with Wayward, an eight-part Netflix limited series about a so-called therapeutic boarding school that is very much not what the brochure promises. It is creepy, topical, and yes, stacked with needle-drops that will get stuck in your head.

The setup

Martin plays Alex Dempsey, a cop who relocates to a small Vermont town that just happens to be home to Tall Pines Academy, a 'therapeutic' school for 'troubled teens.' Within minutes of arriving, he realizes the glossy marketing is smoke and mirrors. The place is run with an iron smile by Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette), and the deeper Alex looks, the uglier it gets.

Why Martin made this story

This is personal for Martin. They told The Wrap that their teenage years still feel vivid and that the show grew out of that sense of youthful moral clarity colliding with the compromises of adulthood. The idea was to turn those feelings into a thriller and shine a light on the industry built around 'fixing' teens.

'I wanted to explore how young people know who they are and they have a strong moral compass, and then we all, as we get older, have to suppress our critical thinking to participate in the world. So I wanted to make a thriller out of that and explore the troubled teen industry. I had a best friend who got sent there.'

In Dazed, Martin recalled that friend being shipped from Canada to an American program and coming back with wild stories about unregulated therapy and practices that would not survive daylight. They say they have been digging into this world for two decades, tracing its roots to 1970s cults like Synanon and their behavior-mod 'treatments.' It is the kind of inside-baseball detail that is both bizarre and depressingly believable.

Collette on the tone

If you are expecting a straight shot of misery, Collette says think again. She told Gayety the show is not one note; it balances sharp, sometimes very funny moments with behavior that is genuinely disturbing. It is a tightrope walk, and she is very much the steel cable.

The music (and the one song that haunts the halls)

Wayward swings big on the soundtrack. Classics rub shoulders with deep cuts, and Lead Belly's In the Pines (yes, the one Nirvana covered on MTV Unplugged in 1993) becomes Tall Pines Academy's unofficial anthem. The song pops up in multiple versions and remixes throughout the season, and at one point Collette even sings it herself. Here is the full tracklist by episode:

• Episode 1: Time - Pink Floyd, Say It Ain't So - Weezer, Get Free - The Vines, Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd, (Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
• Episode 2: Dear Prudence - The Leslie West Band, Is Anybody Home? - Our Lady Peace, North Dakota - Thrush Hermit, Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan, Riot - Hugh Masekela, Perfect Day - Al Green
• Episode 3: Just Dropped in (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) - Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, Tiger the Lion - The Tragically Hip
• Episode 4: Bad 'N' Ruin - Faces, Origin: Orphan - The Hidden Cameras
• Episode 5: No Surprises - Radiohead, Fragile Bird - Jim Wold, Highway Star - Deep Purple, Happiness/The Gondola Man - Elliott Smith, I Only Have Eyes For You - The Flamingos, Graduate - Third Eye Blind
• Episode 6: What You Do to Me - Teenage Fanclub, Butterfly - Crazy Town, Zorba's Dance - Mikis Theodorakis, Someone Who's Cool - Odds, I'm In The Mood For Love - Julie London, Life's A Gas - T-Rex
• Episode 7: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band
• Episode 8: Help I'm Alive - Metric, Time - Pink Floyd

Where to watch

Wayward is streaming now on Netflix.