The Music of David Lynch

Filmmaker David Lynch has been subverting our senses since his feature length debut Eraserhead in 1977. He’s consistently tread a hazy line between dream and reality, comfort and menace, innocence and perversion with television and films like Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and Wild At Heart. At the very centre of his cinematic world are the soundtracks, many of them featuring the compositions of Angelo Badalamenti and the voice of Julee Cruise. 

In light of the passing of both Cruise and Badalamenti last year, we’re revisiting a J Files special on the music of David Lynch which was hosted by Francis Leach in 2015.

This episode touches on some of Lynch’s most iconic musical moments— Nicolas Cage channelling ‘The King’ in Wild At Heart, Bobby Vinton’s Blue Velvet becoming irreversibly creepy, David Lynch’s own songwriting forays, and Trent Reznor’s fingerprints all over the soundtrack to Lost Highway (including Nine Inch Nails’ hit written for the film—'The Perfect Drug').

We’ll also hear from Adalita, Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto, experimental post-punk band Xiu Xiu, music director David Coulter, Australian fans of his music and art as well as from Lynch himself.