Thoughts on Music and David Lynch

Before I begin this post, I wanted to apologize for not putting anything out last week. I caught the covid, and was struggling to get stuff done on my writing days (Sunday and Monday). I’m still hacking up a lung, but they have me on antibiotics for that now. It’ll be cool if they actually solve it. Now, on to the post.

The film world was sent into mourning this past week as it learned that David Lynch died at the age of 78. Whether you find his work to be profound and touching or tiring and esoteric, there is no argument that Lynch is a monumental figure in the history of both global and American cinema.

I fall solidly into the previous camp with David Lynch. Much of my taste as a person in the world can be tracked back to me watching Twin Peaks reruns in my teens. I distinctly remember watching Blue Velvet in my friend Willie’s dorm room when I was at Oberlin, and watching Inland Empire at the AFI Silver after I finished taking the GREs (I did well enough to get into a program, thank you for asking). Regardless of how many other things I watched, David Lynch’s art always held a space in my mind.

Given that this is a music newsletter, it should be obvious that one of the ways he was able to do this was through the use of music in his projects. For example, I have never forgotten the image of Audrey Horne swaying at the Double R to her theme.

Watching Audrey sway to her own imagined rhythm is hypnotic in its own regard. However, the mystery of the scene is brought up by the song, “Audrey’s Dance.” Created by longtime Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti, the song slinks along a slow, smoooth bass line. A vibraphone creates a quivering, haunting tone that is shocked with stabs of horn and the wandering desperation of woodwinds. As we move through the show, we learn how perfectly this song represents Audrey Horne: it mixes her well-meaning inquisitiveness and naivete about the world with the various evils that exist just beyond her, ones that she only learns about as she falls deeper and deeper into the mystery that is Laura Palmer’s death.

But thinking about this scene got me thinking about the larger use of music in David Lynch’s work. Whereas music in some movies can seem like a reason for a director to flex their taste or to overwhelm the emotions of the viewer through bombast, Lynch understood the need for the sound and image to work together to open up the portal of understanding for his work. No songs are throwaways or hipster flexes. No one scores cool points using Bobby Vinton or Roy Orbison, two of the most sincere singers of an extremely forthright period of music. Every single piece of music adds to the tone of the project and provides further information, much more than just a vibe.

To further explore this idea, I spent a lot of the past few days listening to the various soundtracks of the Lynch projects. One day, I listened to all of the Twin Peaks music. On another, I listened to many of the movie soundtracks. If I learned nothing from this process, it was that I never had to guess with David Lynch. He always provided an answer.

If you are reading this and have not watched Twin Peaks (I would assume that this is not the case, but I have to be neutral), Twin Peaks was created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Through some sort of magic, this show ran on ABC for two seasons between 1990 and 1991 before being canceled. Following the cancellation, Lynch made Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel that followed the final days of Laura Palmer before her death. In 2017, Lynch and Frost made Twin Peaks: The Return, a limited series that picks up from the events at the end of season two. These 18 episodes wrap up the story of Twin Peaks and provide some of the most surreal television of the 21st century.

The show constantly played at the tension between the aw-shucks veneer of Twin Peaks and the various elements that led to the demise of Laura Palmer. The music of the show does an excellent job at highlighting this incongruity. The iconic theme song of the show excels at playing at the grandeur and beauty of the location while still striking at something truly awful and menacing at its core.

The forlorn synthesizer lines and two-note bass line contrast with the floating tones that provide the main melody. It both haunts and soothes, much like the memory of Laura Palmer. This balance between light and dark continues to play out through the original soundtrack of Twin Peaks, highlighting the balance that the show explores throughout its run.

In The Return and Fire Walk with Me, this balance is shifted greatly. The music becomes considerably darker. On the Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, the music becomes suffused with a darker tone that speaks to the horrors inflicted upon Laura. You can hear the departure on a song like “The Pink Room,” which is anchored by a chugging guitar riff and strings. The song suggests a greater, considerably more present menace than the subterranean evil that lurks in the heart of Twin Peaks.

The evil present in Fire Walk with Me comes to occupy the soundtrack of The Return as well. A track like “Dark Mood Woods/The Red Room” exemplifies how the evil has come to overtake the entire world of Twin Peaks, rather than hiding in cracks and crevices. Things have become noticeably darker, and the naivete that existed in that original world has disappeared with the appearance of Bob. (I’m not going to explain that. Watch the show if you want to know what that means.)

As I listened to all of this music, it only made clearer to me how much thought David Lynch put into making all of the show's components work together. I could see myself going through the town, sitting at the Double R, traveling to the roadhouse, and experiencing all of the characters of the town. It was truly moving to hear this much depth in the soundtrack. I really was not expecting it.

This continued into the movies as well. The Blue Velvet soundtrack highlights the film's noir tones and the menace lurking in Lumberton. Even on the soundtrack without the visuals, “In Dreams” is still extremely haunting.

The soundtracks to both Inland Empire and Lost Highway are appropriately terrifying, as they should be. Both throw you into a state of disorientation and loss, with confusion and terror at their cores. If you have not seen these before, I only recommend you watch with an open mind.

I am going to end this appreciation of Lynch and his music with Wild at Heart, the film in which Laura Dern and Nic Cage are Lula and Sailor, two young people who are crazy in love.

If there was a truly moving listening experience in this process, it was on this soundtrack listening to Nic Cage gently croon “Love Me Tender.”

Aside from having a rather nice singing voice, Cage is genuinely emotional. It feels like he is singing with passion to the one he loves. If you watch the clip, you can see how much Sailor truly loves Lula and that he would do anything for her. It’s really sweet, which is not necessarily an adjective that I can use for the work of David Lynch.

If I wrote about the images that accompanied these songs, this post would be so much longer. The visuals well encapsulate the creative mind of Lynch. But, the music adds a necessary depth and complexity to the affair, one that makes those visuals even stronger.

I believe I’ve said enough here. David Lynch is one of my favorite directors and he’ll be missed by me and many, many others. He brought so much to the world, and was such a positive force for creativity and imagination. Next week, we’ll be back to the regular music world where I’ll introduce an idea I’ve been working on for a couple of weeks now.