by Greg Kot
It could well be a plot summary of Blue Velvet, or perhaps Twin Peaks: âItâs all about relationships-inside and outside the company. Famous film directors. Composers. Me. Itâs so complicated and giant and strange.â But itâs actually Julee Cruise, the diminutive musician-actress whose angelic voice has graced the provocative Blue Velvet movie and the hit Twin Peaks TV series, talking about life with David Lynch.
After being released to critical raves and commercial indifference last year, Cruiseâs Floating Into the Night (Warner) album has cracked the Top 100 pop charts, thanks in part to the success of Twin Peaks. Floating Into the Night provides theme music for the show, and Cruise appeared in an episode of the Lynch-produced series as a roadhouse singer.
The album, full of deceptively straightforward romantic lyrics written by Lynch and an alternately lulling and jarring score composed by Angelo Badalamenti, sounds like nothing else in pop music. Cruise sings in a soft, child-like soprano over a cushion of purring keyboards and percussion, only to have myriad sound effects disrupt the mood: guitars out of Ennio Morriconeâs spaghetti westerns, early â60s girl-group choruses and Big Band horns. Itâs not unlike watching a Lynch movie: Just when you think you have a handle on things, something strange and discomforting happens.
âThe person singing those songs is very lonesome; in fact, sheâs losing her mind,â Cruise said with a laugh. Itâs clear that besides being a mesmerizing singing performance, Floating Into the Night is also a first-rate acting job.
âTechnically this music is so delicate that itâs a challenge just to sing it,â she said. âBut at the same time, it allows me to be more dramatic, more psychotic than if I were just singing âOh, baby, babyâ into the microphone. Certain things you canât overact while youâre singing. This, I can overact and get away with it. I can stylize it.â
Cruise met Lynch after he had hired her friend, Badalamenti, to work on the score of Blue Velvet in 1986. âDavid wrote the lyrics out on a napkin and gave Angelo a few instructions,â she said. âAngelo wrote the music based on that.â
She rounded up some other singers, none of whom could negotiate the nebulous, free-floating rhythms and subdued, dark textures of the song, Mysteries of Love. Finally, she tried it herself.
âThere was just the hint of a melody, no breaks in the music, no place for a singer to breathe,â she said. âAt first I said I couldnât do it. I didnât think I could hold my breath that long.â But she so impressed Lynch and Badalamenti with her interpretation that they insisted on pushing the project further, into a full album.
While the record deal took shape, Cruise took a job as a Janis Joplin-style singer in a New York play and âcompletely butchered my vocal cords.â
âI had to hit rock bottom and almost lose my voice before I could learn how to use my voice for this album,â she said. She also gave up smoking, and as the album progressed, her voice grew stronger.
âOn half of the album, they had to overdub my voice three or four times to make it sound strong enough,â she said. âBut by the last half of the recording, my voice was strong enough to stand on its own.â
The albumâs unique mixture of sounds, its undercurrent of stylized madness, evolved as the three worked together. âThere were times I was worried that it was going to sound too clichĂŠd, too bland,â she said. âThe track I Remember, for example, sounded like something out of a bad soap opera at first. Then, by accident, we came up with these weird synthesizer notes that transformed the song into something credible, something with real bite to it.â
Though critics loved the album, commercial radio didnât know what to make of it. But the success of Twin Peaks has rekindled interest in all things Lynch. âI wasnât counting on Twin Peaks changing anything for me,â Cruise said. âI didn`t think it would be a hit except with the black turtleneck crowd.â
The seriesâ broad-based appeal ensures that a second Cruise album will appear next year (âthe same voice but with a different feelâ), and that sheâll be singing in the Twin Peaks roadhouse next fall.
Though she has risen to the level of collaborator with Lynch, Cruise still remains a fan of his work. âI turn out all the lights, climb in my favorite chair and watch Twin Peaks on Thursday night just like everybody else,â she said.
And the notorious Blue Velvet? âIt frightened and fascinated me,â she said. âIt took me somewhere else.â
The same could be said for Julee Cruise's intensely introspective music.
Source: Chicago Tribune June 17 1990
