HOFFSTACK PLAYLIST #6 - Julee Cruise, "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart"

This is what 1990 sounded like if you were in the right spot.

David Lynch, one of the most important film artists in the medium’s history, has died, as reported moments ago in numerous news outlets. Only Salvador Dalí, Monty Python and, during a few key moments, The Beatles did more to bring surrealism to mass culture. There was an brief instant in 1990—when Twin Peaks was a nationwide television hit, Wild at Heart was in theaters and Blue Velvet was widely available for repeat VHS rental—that he was all anyone could talk about. At least among my peers and I, because we were cool. (I do not, however, know who won the World Series in 1990.)

Lynch’s project was a wholly created world—one that mixed silly humor with unpredictable swerves into sex and violence, and that was reflected in his cinematography and sound design. A chief element was the music composed by Angelo Badalamenti and, at times, sung by Julee Cruise. (Both of these artists have predeceased Lynch; they are all sitting at a table in an empty club with red lighting in Heaven.)

Many other musicians have an association with a particular filmmaker, but Cruise and Lynch’s bond is especially tight. Her recording “Mysteries of Love,” drenched in synthesizers and slow, echoey vocals, is the only acceptable accompaniment to the final images of Blue Velvet, in which the tranquility and peace of the American Dream seems to have reset itself, at least for a little while.

The cool, shimmery opening to Twin Peaks is an instrumental version of “Falling” from her Floating Into the Night album, which also features a few other tracks from the show.

The one I picked, “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart,” which you can hear by clicking the link/image up top, was always my favorite because it is the most peppy. As with everything Lynch, it dips its toe into kitsch. (Its toe? Its whole foot!) It has the Neo-1950s vibe that made Sherilyn Fenn’s Audrey Horne an immediate success with every pervert in television-land, but also has those (intentionally?) cheap-sounding “modern” synthesizers. The bass and finger-snaps feel canned, the digitized saxophone squawk sounds like traffic, but the tremolo-rich guitar is legitimately grooving, in a Santo and Johnny-like way. It’s not really describable, and Lord knows how it actually comes together and works. Don’t ever try to put a label on anything Lynch is involved in, I suppose. (This album, and Cruise’s concert video Industrial Symphony No. 1 were very much David Lynch productions.)

The shade of Lynch I always liked most was the humor. I much prefer Eraserhead to INLAND EMPIRE, for example. That’s why it’s a song—a ditty, a bop!—like this that I’d like to imagine Lynch dancing to on his way to meet St. Peter. Not one of those terrifying ones. In fact, I’d like that for us all.