Dreams of Schlock: The Music of Twin Peaks

All week, Loser City is running Twin Peaks and David Lynch themed content in honor of the release of the new Twin Peaks boxed set, which came out yesterday, July 29th. Today, Joshua Palmer examines the music of Twin Peaks and its enduring influence on the contemporary dream-pop scene as well as its bold embrace of schlock within the context of Lynch’s own embrace of soap opera tropes and cliches.

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The title sequence of Twin Peaks clocks in at just past two and a half minutes—a veritable eternity in the world of television. The extensive run time of the intro is hardly aided by the general lack of goings-on. The first minute is devoted almost entirely to shots of Twin Peaks’ legendary Packard Saw Mill and its automated machines. The next forty seconds are comprised solely of a still shot of the town’s “Welcome” sign and namesake mountains, while the final minute showcases a stunning waterfall and river. No characters are introduced, no relationships are implied, and none of the show’s bizarre plot is foreshadowed. If the neon green character plates are ignored, you might think the show to be one of those interminable PBS, bird-watching programs your grandparents put on whenever you visit. In fact, the only living creature in the entirety of the sequence is the Bewick’s Wren—an indigenous bird of the Pacific Northwest—seen only for the first few seconds. To top it all off, the entire affair is accompanied by a synthesized orchestra playing the anthem that has become aurally synonymous with the show’s unsettling banality: the Twin Peaks Theme, otherwise known as the instrumental to Julee Cruise’s song “Falling.”

The first time I sat down to watch Twin Peaks, I couldn’t help but laugh at the aggressively boring introduction to the show. My friends had hyped it up to be the ultimate cult-classic so I knew David Lynch had crafted this quaint yet bland sequence for good reason. So I hunkered down, thinking Lynch was in it for the long-con. And then—well, not much happened. I mean there was intrigue, murder, betrayal, sex, and heartache galore, but the show played out less like the masterpiece I had anticipated and more like what I might have expected from a soap opera. Not until Agent Dale Cooper’s infamous dream-prophecy did I realize I was already a mile down the rabbit hole with a stomach too bloated by coffee and pie to even consider climbing back out. Looking back I should’ve known better; while the show moves slowly, there are near constant signs that something is fundamentally wrong in Twin Peaks. From the horrifyingly furtive glances between the impossibly pretty high-schoolers (James excluded) to the fluorescent morgue lights that flicker above Dale Cooper’s head as he asks not about Laura Palmer’s murder, but about what kind of amazing trees populate the wilderness around Twin Peaks (they’re Douglas Firs)—Lynch gives plenty of hints that there is evil afoot. And a very literal evil at that.

I also realized that part of what had lured me this deep into the world of Twin Peaks was Angelo Baladamenti’s genius soundtrack. Obviously, the immediate purpose of a soundtrack is to subtly (and at times not so subtly) manipulate our emotional reactions to onscreen action, essentially telling us how to feel about any given moment. When we find Laura Palmer’s body on the river’s rocky shore, murky synth-strings flow into a heart-rending piano part that climbs the scale until it bursts in melodramatic splendor before cascading back down into the low, turbid register from which it began. Musically, Laura’s murder is an obvious tragedy about which we as viewers should be particularly upset. When Audrey Horne plays a song on the jukebox at the Double R Diner, swing rhythms, sizzling cymbals, and jazzy clarinets clue us in to Audrey’s immense sex appeal. “God, I love this music,” she whispers to Donna at the diner’s bar, “Isn’t it too dreamy?”

 

Some facts about Soundtrack from Twin Peaks:

• Released by Warner Brothers on September 7, 1990
• RIAA Gold Certified
• Peaked at 22 on The Billboard 200 in 1990
• Peaked at 16 on the Top New Age Albums chart in 1991
• First track “Twin Peaks Theme” won the Grammy award for “Best Pop Instrumental Performance,” beating out Kenny G, Phil Collins and Quincy Jones
• Features three tracks from dream-pop chanteuse Julee Cruise’s 1989 album Floating into the Night
• All lyrics written by David Lynch
• All music composed by Angelo Badalamenti

Audrey Horne was not the only one to take notice of the dreamy nature of Badalamenti’s music. Many (Lynch included) have placed it within the realm of dream-pop, a genre populated by wispy voices and musical textures that range from ephemeral to sumptuous. The undeniable forebears of the genre would be Cocteau Twins, a Scottish husband-and-wife team that made some of the most dazzling music of the eighties. While many have claimed that Badalamenti’s music for Lynch’s projects evokes the musical styles of dream-pop, it is worth noting that Soundtrack from Twin Peaks is worlds away from what Cocteau Twins and their contemporaries were doing in terms of musical sophistication and complexity.

To my ears, most of the music from Soundtrack registers as schlock, pure and simple. The textures are thin, the arrangements are generally dull, and the synthesized instruments sound hackneyed and cheap. Granted, I watched this show almost 25 years after its premier. However, even with my historical-context blinders on, I can’t get over how hilariously corny that drugged, rockabilly guitar sounds. But these are not meant to be entirely derogatory observations. In fact, I think this music is the only music that could possibly have worked for the show.

What makes Twin Peaks so unique is how startlingly genuine Lynch’s approach to the form is. The show isn’t a pastiche in the way Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is. Instead of slyly combining individual elements of the genre to provide commentary on it, Lynch crams every conceivable soap opera trope into the show and is thus able to reinvigorate and amplify the dormant pathos within those tired clichés. And Badalamenti’s music functions in the same way. He commits whole-heartedly to the corny instrumental textures and by turning the cheese-knob up to eleven he manages to create sounds that are uniquely affective (the “Laura Palmer” theme gets me every fucking time). Musical complexity would only have served to mar the clarity of Twin Peaks’ aesthetic.

When I had the honor of introducing Twin Peaks to a friend of mine, she grew impatient with the intro at about the one minute mark. “God, why won’t it fucking end,” she groaned. I smiled to myself and shushed her until the show proper began. With each successive episode, her protests weakened, although whether that was out of respect for the show or simple resignation I can’t be sure. Regardless, she eventually fell in love with Twin Peaks (especially Dale Cooper) and when Audrey whispered her famous line, my friend replied “It is damn dreamy.”

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Joshua Palmer is a writer, musician, and dilettante-about-town living in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Trinity University with a major in Wumbology, a minor in English, and did his Honors Thesis on the effects of listening to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds while crying in bed about stupid boys who don’t even deserve you.  He does not have a twitter and apologizes to everyone for this.