David Lynch’s Music Was as Unsettlingly Brilliant as His Films

With the recent passing of David Lynch, the world lost one of cinema's most distinctive visionaries.

His work was absurd but approachable; dark, but funny; haunting, yet tender. His brand of surrealism was very often unsettling, but unlike many experimental artists, he was someone you could imagine sitting down with for a slice of pie and a damn fine cup of coffee.

His aesthetic was so influential that it earned him a dictionary-approved adjective: Lynchian. The word, like Lynch himself, is hard to define, but generally refers to moments in life that feel dream-like—the uncanny brushing up against the mundane. For example, the opening of his 1986 film Blue Velvet shows a man watering his manicured front lawn. The man collapses from a stroke, and the camera slowly zooms past him, closer and closer to the grass until we’re underneath the soil, a dark mass of insects climbing over each other. With his films, things were never as they appeared, and there was always something else going on under the surface.

Watch the haunting opening scene of Blue Velvet:

The Musical Legacy of David Lynch

Beyond filmmaking, Lynch was prolific in visual art and in music. The term “musician” isn’t quite right, though he was that. The way Lynch describes his guitar style in a 2001 issue of BOSS Users Group magazine illustrates his relationship to music: “I taught myself and I play upside down and backwards, like a lap guitar. I’m interested in making the guitar talk. It’s somewhat musical, but then again, it’s not.”

“David Lynch is not always acknowledged as such, but he is probably one of the most significant sound designers of the post-war period,” says Ryan Page, assistant professor in the Electronic Production and Design Department. “He was obviously a talented producer, but his sonic contributions to his films, in terms of texture and tonal quality, are completely unique. Long before personal computers enabled home studio sound design, Lynch was treating the sound design for his films as a studio art practice.”

As an electronic music composer who performs as Repairer of Reputations(Opens in a new window) and often works in the horror genre, Page cites Lynch as a major musical influence. In 2021, they released VVVVVVVV(Opens in a new window), an EP of original work inspired by Twin Peaks. He’s also at work scoring part two of his narrative video game, The Path of Veins, making use of a Roland JX-10 synthesizer—the same model used in the Twin Peaks theme music. (For the real gear heads out there: Page clarifies that Kinny Landrum, the synth player for Twin Peaks, used the Roland MKS-70, which is the rackmount version of the JX-10 keyboard.)

Listen to “Below the Red Trees,” from VVVVVVVV by Repairer of Reputations:

Ryan Page on Lynch Collaborations

Collaborations were central to Lynch’s musical work in his films and television shows, most notably with the late composer Angelo Badalamenti. This approach extended to Lynch's recorded output. Over his career, he made music with Julee Cruise, Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Chrystabell, Lykke Li, Flying Lotus, and many more. 

Below, Page digs into several of these key creative partnerships. They also discuss what synths were used for the Twin Peaks theme music, and their own artistic relationship to Lynch.

Listen to a playlist featuring key collaborations from across David Lynch's career, curated by Ryan Page:

Alan Splet

“In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)”
"On his first feature film, Eraserhead, Lynch mixed premade sound effects with his own Foley and processed them beyond recognition by reverberating them through objects and mixing or distorting them in extreme ways. A collaboration with Oscar-winning sound designer Alan Splet, who had previously worked with Lynch on The Grandmother seven years prior, the soundtrack to Eraserhead is sonically closer to the early industrial music of Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle than it is to a traditional soundtrack.

"Contrast is an important element of Lynch’s filmmaking, and, in Eraserhead, one of the most important examples of this is the Lady in the Radiator’s song ‘In Heaven.’ While still maintaining some of the distance and processing from the rest of the soundtrack, this relatively simple combination of organ and vocals—supplied by singer-songwriter Peter Ivers—provides a sharp contrast from the horror of the rest of the film, musically and lyrically."

Angelo Badalamenti

“Laura Palmer's Theme”
"The most well-known of Lynch’s collaborations is his work with Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise. These include the soundtracks to seminal work such as Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Lynch’s work on these seems to vary. Badalamenti is credited with composing the music to Lynch’s lyrics. However, his involvement is not just limited to this.

"In the video, Badalamenti describes how Lynch essentially narrated a story to him in real time, as he composed 'Laura Palmer’s Theme.' Lynch was, in essence, describing the emotional arc of the music, which Badalamenti was composing to, in real time. Because he approached the music as an extension of the emotional world of the film, his contributions transcend the traditional songwriting roles.

"Lynch would also work with Badalamenti’s music directly, taking the synthesized sounds he created and slowing them down and layering them. Many of these sounds were created on the last analog synthesizer Roland created, the MKS-80/JX-10. A few days before David passed away, I saw a JX-10 in a music store; it was in slightly rough shape, but because of its connection to Twin Peaks, I decided to purchase it and repair it. I have been using it to compose the music for the second part of my video game, The Path of Veins(Opens in a new window), which is directly influenced by their music for Twin Peaks."

Thought Gang

“A Real Indication”
"Thought Gang is another collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti. This particular project was featured in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, and Mullholland Drive. 'A Real Indication' is an ambiguous track, featuring a kind of discordant blues, almost reminiscent of early-’00s Tom Waits. The vocals and lyrics come across almost like an improvised beat poem, which perfectly encapsulates the strange jittery atmosphere of Twin Peaks prior to Laura Palmer’s death."

“The Black Dog Runs at Night”
"‘The Black Dog Runs at Night’ is, by contrast, exceptionally menacing and hyponotic. Consisting of filtered noise resembling wind, a syncopated bass line, sound effects, faint synth, and what initially appears to be a loop of the titular phrase, the track could easily drift into pretension, but there are so many moments of strangeness and mystery in its 1:46 runtime that it’s an almost perfect encapsulation of Lynchian dread."

Chrystabell

“This Train”
"Chrystabell is one of David Lynch’s most consistent collaborators from the final period of his life. She has spoken about not wanting to be seen solely as David Lynch’s ‘muse,’ which is completely understandable. However, her collaborations with Lynch offer an interesting perspective on him as a producer of someone else’s work. The albums she released are mostly independent of his other work, and her first album with Lynch, This Train, is the culmination of nearly a decade of collaboration that clearly influenced his solo albums such as Crazy Clown Time."

“She Knew”
"‘She Knew’ from last year’s Cellophane Memories is one of their last collaborations and also features a posthumous appearance from Badalamenti, who had died two years prior. The track itself is very reminiscent of the soundtrack to Twin Peaks, but the dense, fragmented vocals and the strange frenetic structure of the track place it in a different category than the simple music composed for those soundtracks."