Written by Joseph Diehl
After his passing in January 2025, many like myself have been revisiting the movies of critically acclaimed director David Lynch. One thing that makes Lynch’s movies so spectacular is the way he knows how to utilize sound and music to his advantage, using them to drive a narrative forward in many of his films. As the sound designer for several of his own movies, he makes sure to create an atmosphere that perfectly sets the tone and often causes the suspense to be cranked up to its highest degree. While watching a David Lynch film, the soundscapes will never cease to amaze, it’s difficult to see even one without noticing the key role that music has to play in it. I’d like to take the time today to talk about some of the musical moments in Lynch’s movies that stand out as especially singular.
The first David Lynch film that I ever saw was Eraserhead (1977), being his first feature film, it also marks a start to establishing music as a surrealist tool to create a unique ambience. About halfway through the movie, the main character’s radiator opens to reveal a tiny stage, where this strange looking woman begins singing the song “In Heaven”. Written by Lynch and Peter Ivers, with melancholy lyrics and a performance that is almost hypnotic, it’s hard to not forget the image of this scene playing out. When taking the song lyrics and placing them in context of the film, the fear of fatherhood that the movie is conveying shows just how crucial the song is in understanding the perils of our main character. Another great example of this tonal emphasis through music is best displayed in his last feature film he directed in 2006, Inland Empire. Partway through the movie as Laura Dern’s character is descending into this nightmarish blur between film set delusions and what is actually reality, we are gifted with one of the most unexpected musical numbers I’ve ever seen in a movie. The incredibly dark tone of the scene is interrupted by multiple women appearing in front of our main actress and breaking into a dance number to “The Locomotion” by Little Eva. As quickly as the musical number starts, it immediately disappears and leaves nothing behind but eerie silence and Dern’s terrified look, further helping to obscure what we can believe to be actually happening as our protagonist plummets into madness.
Even though the music itself can push the narrative forward by creating such an immense ambience, Lynch also uses music in many cases to completely stop the plot. A great example of this can be seen in the film Blue Velvet (1986) during a performance of “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison. Our main character has been forcefully taken along for a night of violence of indulgence and at the climax of it all comes a lip synced performance of the track by an extremely eccentric character who solely exists in this one scene. The lip sync act feels so incredibly performative and grandiose that it’s distracting, not only the main character from the events unfolding in the room next door, but also to us as the audience from just how serious the situation has become. The performance essence and stagedness of this can be almost mirrored in another one of Lynch’s most iconic musical scenes from Mulholland Drive (2001), where an extremely constructed number plays out to stop the narrative and completely pivot. In Mulholland Drive, our two main female protagonists have made their way through the night to a venue known as Club Silencio. Here, they watch the real-life singer songwriter Rebekah Del Rio perform the song “Llorando”, an incredibly emotional Spanish cover of the Roy Orbison track “Crying”. The whole club scene acts as a total pause on the story so far, leaving us wondering why we’re here or what’s going on but as the song unfolds and our two protagonists get more and more emotional, it becomes clear that our perceived reality here is unfolding at the seams.
It would be pretty hard to talk about the musicality of David Lynch and his films without discussing the work that Angelo Badalamenti has contributed. What many would argue for being the most popular musical numbers of David Lynch’s filmography come from the TV series Twin Peaks, whose soundtrack was composed by Badalamenti. Between instrumentals and the tracks featuring the magnificent Julee Cruise for vocals, the soundtrack from Twin Peaks is just simply iconic. The main theme for the show acts as a sort of portal into the setting of the series, it perfectly sets the tone for whatever is going to play out in the next hour to come. The slow, almost impossible, sounding synth in the background leans into the darkness that lurks in this town. However, above that we have the hopeful melody conveying the dream that we can figure out just who the hell killed Laura Palmer and give her the justice she deserves. “Laura’s Theme” serves as one of the most memorable moments on the soundtrack during the show, every reveal, every step forward in the case, every emotional moment shared between people who loved Laura, the song will be played. The different musical themes of characters repeat consistently throughout the show to represent how big of an impact they had on this town. Just like his films, we can see Lynch using music to empower moments of great discovery. In the final episode of the original series, as our detective descends into the otherworldly underbelly of Twin Peaks, the song “Sycamore Trees” by Jimmy Scott begins. This track is so tonally different from anything else in the show that it provides such a great value to this moment. It feels evil, the scene that accompanies it feels sinister and we’re left in such an intense suspense hoping that our protagonist detective is going to be able to make it out alive after all of this.
Without a doubt, the music of Twin Peaks and the other films in Lynch’s filmography will leave a legacy for many years to come. In spaces like ours, where music is so highly valued, it’s incredibly refreshing to see a director who understands the value that a perfectly placed track can bring to a scene, and there are very few who see that value as well as David Lynch.
