{"id":8200,"date":"2026-01-20T15:39:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/twin-peaks-angelo-badalamenti-julee-cruise-creation-shows-timeless-theme-music-100880\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T15:39:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:39:25","slug":"twin-peaks-angelo-badalamenti-julee-cruise-creation-shows-timeless-theme-music-100880","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/twin-peaks-angelo-badalamenti-julee-cruise-creation-shows-timeless-theme-music-100880\/","title":{"rendered":"The making of the Twin Peaks theme: \u201cDavid thinks music can be so much more beautiful if it\u2019s played slower\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How Julee Cruise\u2019s haunting and glacial theme song set the tone for David Lynch\u2019s off-kilter TV series. Originally published in Uncut’s June 2017 issue. Words: Tom Pinnock<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How Julee Cruise\u2019s haunting and glacial theme song set the tone for David Lynch\u2019s off-kilter TV series. Originally published in Uncut\u2019s June 2017 issue. Words: Tom Pinnock<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cExcalibur Sound was the darkest, dingiest place imaginable,\u201d says composer Angelo Badalamenti, recalling the Manhattan studio where he and David Lynch produced much of Twin Peaks\u2019 music. \u201cThe lights would flicker, the electricity would go in and out, like something from a David Lynch movie. When we went to see it, there was a terrible odour to the room. It was tiny, the mice were even running around hunchback. But David loved it \u2013 he said, \u2018This place creates such a beautiful mood for us, Angelo, doesn\u2019t it?\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, I guess\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

From such humble surroundings came a wealth of beautiful and dark music; both for Julee Cruise\u2019s dream-pop masterpiece, 1989\u2019s Floating Into The Night, and for Twin Peaks, Lynch\u2019s maverick TV series, which returns for its third season in May after 26 years away.<\/p>\n

Its theme, a glacial ballad driven by electric piano and what sounds like a twanging bass guitar, was an instrumental version of \u201cFalling\u201d, a highlight of Cruise\u2019s album, written and produced by Badalamenti and Lynch after discovering the singer during the making of 1986\u2019s Blue Velvet. \u201cDavid would say, \u2018Julee, imagine you\u2019re whispering to your lover\u2019,\u201d says Cruise today, remembering the sessions. \u201c[At first] I didn\u2019t want to sound like that, though, I didn\u2019t want to show that side of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Badalamenti, who has just turned 80, has promised Lynch he won\u2019t say anything about the new series \u2013 even its theme \u2013 he\u2019s keen to stress how important the music of Twin Peaks is to him. \u201cSome of my finest moments have come from my long-term professional association with David Lynch,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the music for Twin Peaks is probably the work I\u2019m most proud of. David and I have just an unbelievable relationship\u2026 David would verbalise things that he has in mind, pictures in his head, and then I would write music. On \u2018Falling\u2019, David set the tone for me, and I understood. That kind of relationship is a marriage made in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ANGELO BADALAMENTI (songwriting, keyboards): The first time I met Julee was when I had a workshop in Lower Manhattan, for a country show I had written. She was one of the members of the cast.<\/p>\n

JULEE CRUISE (vocals): I was a belter. I\u2019d come from Minneapolis, where I was an actor in theatre. My background was French horn and I was really good, but I decided to be an actress. I was always a character actor and a belter \u2013 I didn\u2019t feel comfortable singing real soft or real pretty.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: When David Lynch and I were looking for an angelic voice for \u201cMysteries Of Love\u201d [from Lynch\u2019s 1986 film Blue Velvet], I asked Julee if she knew any singers that could sing in that style. She sent up a couple of friends, but they didn\u2019t cut it for me. Julee said, \u201cMaybe I can give it a try.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, I know you as a show singer, a belter.\u201d She said, \u201cI think I can do it,\u201d went home, did a little work, and as soon as she opened her mouth it was love at first sound.<\/p>\n

CRUISE: It was the music that led me to that. \u201cMysteries Of Love\u201d was meant to sound like This Mortal Coil with Liz Fraser, but I didn\u2019t know that. I remember writing out the lyrics, because they were written on a napkin by David. I was horrified [singing so soft] at first. I was showing a side of me that I didn\u2019t want to show, and that\u2019s the beautiful side, the romantic side, so I approached it as a classical musician would.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: She did exactly what David and I were looking for, because she sounds like an angel. Once we\u2019d written \u201cMysteries Of Love\u201d, that started it all. I said to David, \u201cGive me lyrics, you\u2019re a lyric writer, you can do these things.\u201d I\u2019d write music to just about everything he gave me. I remember that \u201cFalling\u201d was simply one of the lyrics. Floating Into The Night was released before Twin Peaks, but David was well into the show and the concept by that point, so as we were doing songs for Julee, I\u2019m sure David had Julee\u2019s cuts in mind [for Twin Peaks].<\/p>\n

CRUISE: We just concentrated on getting that sound right, getting those notes right, getting that feeling right. We started with piano and vocal in the office, then went to the studio.<\/p>\n

KINNY LANDRUM (keyboards, sampler): \u201cFalling\u201d as a song was completed sometime in the Floating\u2026 sessions, which were something like summertime of \u201989.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: There was nothing pristine about Excalibur Sound, but it was a fantastic place to work. Artie Polhemus, the owner of the studio, was the very best engineer, not only with recording but also with mixing and editing. I had some of the best jazz-oriented musicians in town. They could play anything. Kinny Landrum was a top-notch musician, and I had Vinnie Bell on guitar, who had some of the most unique electronic sounds of the day. On saxophone, Al Regni \u2013 we went to Eastman School Of Music together and he\u2019s still my good friend today. Grady Tate is one of the best jazz drummers, I might even say, of all time \u2013 he played on virtually everything on Twin Peaks. He had a great sense of humour: once he said, \u201cEvery time I do an Angelo and David session, I play in two tempos, slow and reverse.\u201d David thinks music can be so much more beautiful if it\u2019s played slower. Even when I started composing \u201cLaura Palmer\u2019s Theme\u201d, David said, \u201cOh, Angelo, that\u2019s beautiful, but play it slower, slower\u2026\u201d My God, I really felt like I was playing in reverse! But that, to David, is beautiful.<\/p>\n

CRUISE: We recorded for almost a whole year. I was so scared with each new song. We had already set keys for every song, and they\u2019re rather low. But because I brought the head voice in, it sounds higher. First we\u2019d get the main vocal down, then I would sing it again and the second part would be a little softer, and less consonanty, then the third would be barely any consonants at all. I went home with a demo tape every day and thought, \u2018This is awful work I\u2019m doing, I sound terrible. The music is so great, but I\u2019m not living up to it.\u2019 So I decided I had no choice but to be myself and show that intimate, quiet beauty that is inside. It just came to life with the musicians, and making it a whole [in the mixes].<\/p>\n

LANDRUM: We\u2019d usually work from lead sheets, which had a melody and chords underneath, and we\u2019d do what we thought was right for that particular piece of music. On \u201cFalling\u201d, Grady played some brushes on the cymbal and maybe a little bass drum, then it\u2019s just me and Julee. Angelo may have played, but generally I played the stuff. The electric piano was done with a Yamaha DX7. The strings were generally a combination of a Roland D-550 and a Prophet T8. Angelo loved those ninth-chord suspensions, so the string parts are moving all the time.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: The \u201950s is David\u2019s world, or at least his world for the projects that he was doing. I\u2019d heard those songs and I knew them, but at that time I was more into the jazz world, hipper things. Certainly, he had a passion for the \u201950s, and it complemented his vision because of the mood of that music and of that period.<\/p>\n

LANDRUM: When we were doing \u201cFalling\u201d, David says, \u201cYou got something that will sound \u201950s?\u201d I thought about the obvious things, like triplets in the upper part of the piano, but it didn\u2019t seem right to me. Although the song had low notes in it, it didn\u2019t have a bass part per se. So I said, \u201cI\u2019ve got this twangy Duane Eddy sound on my Emulator II [sampler] \u2013 what if I pitch that down in the bass register and play a bass part?\u201d David said, \u201cLet me hear it.\u201d So I added a little amplitude modulation \u2013 what you\u2019d call tremolo if it was on a guitar amp \u2013 and played \u2018bom, bom-bom\u2019, and David said, \u201cThat\u2019s it, put it down.\u201d I think it was one take. Floating\u2026 was recorded in summer 1989, and then the rest of the music for Twin Peaks was done in early 1990, before the pilot premiered in April. It was a little hectic.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: We recorded on two-inch tape, 16-track, and we separated every element. Not only did I get a final mix of what that cue was gonna be, but I did mixes of different variations from that, whether you\u2019ve got a mix of just drums and bass, or drums and bass and vibraphone, etcetera. So you\u2019re giving the editor of the film all sorts of variations on your major themes. If you watch Twin Peaks, there are so many variations on \u201cLaura Palmer\u2019s Theme\u201d and the main title theme, and \u201cAudrey\u2019s Dance\u201d. Every time those characters came back, David wanted to use some motif related to that.<\/p>\n

LANDRUM: The very first thing we recorded for the TV show was \u201cLaura Palmer\u2019s Theme\u201d. David was there for that session, and we recorded it in one afternoon. I remember doing overdubs to make \u201cFalling\u201d instrumental \u2013 they were done by me overdubbing a French horn part to play the melody on my Emulator II. I remember that because Angelo himself was a French horn player when he went to Eastman, but so was Julee Cruise, which surprised the heck out of me. But neither one of them had their chops up \u2013 French horn is one of the harder brass instruments to play, and if you haven\u2019t played it in years, you can\u2019t just pick it up and play it. Maybe we added some more strings, but I think that\u2019s all we did to turn \u201cFalling\u201d into the Twin Peaks theme.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: So, all of a sudden, we\u2019ve got Twin Peaks, and David\u2019s in California. Sure enough, when they sent me the first series, David had put in \u201cFalling\u201d under the main title. It just was unreal. He singled that out to use as an instrumental, and the rest is history \u2013 especially the first three notes.<\/p>\n

LANDRUM: I really don\u2019t know if it was always intended to be the theme. In fact, I was kind of surprised that they were going to use that. Not that the song wasn\u2019t good, but it was a song. It worked fine, though. I always tell people that David Lynch always does stuff on time, in budget \u2013 he\u2019s a real pro. He might sort of seem like an \u2018artiste\u2019, but he\u2019s a pro.<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: I had no idea what the network thought of the music, but I guess they were happy, knowing that the audience was happy too! I haven\u2019t listened to Floating Into The Night in so long, but the other day I just lay down on my couch and put on the album. I\u2019ve gotta tell you, every cut on Julee\u2019s album, her vocals, the music, the songs, it\u2019s just so incredibly beautiful. The simplicity and the darkness, and the beauty of \u201cLaura Palmer\u2019s Theme\u201d on Twin Peaks is just something that is remarkable, too.<\/p>\n

CRUISE: To me, Floating\u2026 is the perfect album from tip to toe. That\u2019s why so many people play it to have a baby, to make love, or to take a bubble bath! It\u2019s become this iconic thing that has lasted forever, and it\u2019s the thing I\u2019m most proud of in my life. It\u2019s everything, it\u2019s the music itself, it\u2019s the musicians, it\u2019s David\u2019s direction \u2013 David really is a musician, he just refuses to sing. I\u2019ll say, \u201cDavid, just go [sings note],\u201d and he refuses to do it, still to this day!<\/p>\n

BADALAMENTI: What I\u2019m most proud of is once when I was in London, a woman came up to me and she told me that she had two children: \u201cI\u2019d just like to let you know, both of my children were conceived as your music was playing.\u201d What better compliment? It just knocked me out.<\/p>\n

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FACT FILE
<\/strong>
Written by: Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch
Produced by: Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch
Performers: Julee Cruise (vocals), Angelo Badalamenti (keyboards), Kinny Landrum (keyboards, synthesiser), Grady Tate (drums)
Recorded at: Excalibur Sound, New York
Released: September 1989 (on Floating Into The Night); September 1990 (on Soundtrack From Twin Peaks); October 1990 (single)
Chart peak: UK 7; US \u2013
_______________<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post The making of the Twin Peaks theme: \u201cDavid thinks music can be so much more beautiful if it\u2019s played slower\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How Julee Cruise\u2019s haunting and glacial theme song set the tone for David Lynch\u2019s off-kilter TV series. Originally published in Uncut’s June 2017 issue. Words: Tom Pinnock How Julee Cruise\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5145,31,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-lynch","category-features","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}