Into a microphone that’s actually a lamp, a Pierrot-via-Vegas Dean Stockwell lip-syncs Roy Orbison’s “ In Dreams”-with a little help from Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth. It might require a dissertation to explicate the metaphysics of the scene, but suffice it to say that the woman singing about how “In heaven, everything is fine” seems to live in a dank apartment radiator. It’s black-and-white, but you know that curtain is red. The first big Lynchian music moment, and already nearly all the elements are here: the grotesque makeup, the mid-century style. Herewith, five of the greatest musical moments from Lynch’s films and TV series: If Lynch uses a lot of songs and looks from the 1950s, it’s not just because he likes rockabilly (he does), it’s also because they’re the cultural equivalent of the greenest lawns in Lumberton-fertile soil for finding the grotesque among the wholesome. Taking in a Lynch musical sequence, you might be inclined to shout, Homer Simpson-like: “ Brilliant! I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.” But their common themes (a blurring of the line between real and unreal, a mixture of the macabre and the mundane) reveal an undeniable vision. Which is to say that his musical choices can be as mystifying as they are unsettling. Perhaps the only real surprise is that the album doesn’t contain more finger snaps.Īs Bill Wyman points out in his Slate review of the new Blue Velvet Blu-ray, that movie’s infamous severed ear isn’t just a MacGuffin: “It’s also a sign to us the viewers that sound will play a big role in the film’s impact.” From the scores he’s collaborated on with composer Angelo Badalamenti, to the cavernous, white-noise-heavy sound design most prominent in Eraserhead, his soundtracks are as distinctly Lynchian as his cinematography.

As for the album’s manipulated vocals, those would feel right at home in the Black Lodge. The album’s woozy, reverberating guitars will come as no surprise to fans of Wild At Heart its bouncy, bluesy bass lines would find an audience among the youth of Twin Peaks, and the droning synths could score a nighttime ride down Mulholland Drive. It’s his debut album, but the eccentric director-even if he doesn’t score his own films, like some people-has long been known for his music. David Lynch’s Crazy Clown Time comes out this week.

Wild at heart david lynch distorted