The David Lynch Mixtape

One of the best things about having David Lynch back at the top of his form again is that we get to rekindle our romance with his taste in music. Lynch’s films have always been bizarre little head trips, and he’s consistently used music to set a mood, unsettle an audience, or just generally add another layer of strangeness onto his canvass.

We picked some of the best and most definitive songs from David Lynch’s many film and TV projects and assembled them into a handy playlist for you to enjoy. Some of these represent particular moments in his movies, some are just particularly evocative scores, but they all have contributed to placing that singular David Lynch touch on a film.

*Note: the songs from Mulholland Dr. were not available via spotify, but we wrote about them below anyway.

From Eraserhead

“In Heaven” (Lady in the Radiator Song) by Peter Ivers: The supreme strangeness of Eraserhead manifests in so many ways, but one of the craziest (though also the sweetest) is the Lady in the Radiator, who appears to Henry Spencer and serenades him with “In Heaven,” a perfectly Lynchian (he wrote the lyrics after all) and unsettling little love ditty.

From Blue Velvet

“Blue Velvet” by Bobby Vinton: One of Lynch’s masterstroke decisions on Blue Velvet was using crooner ballads from the idyllic 1950s in order to darkly contrast with the sex and violence lurking just under the surface of a quintessential all-American town.

“In Dreams” by Roy Orbison: Even more unsettling than Bobby Vinton’s voice crooning over the severed ears of this film was the scene where Dean Stockwell lip-syncs to Roy Orbison and drives Dennis Hopper into a violent rage. Orbison’s another one whose voice is so emblematic of an era that his songs are instant time capsules.

From Wild At Heart

“Love Me” by Nicolas Cage: Are you into Nicolas Cage channelling Elvis Presley with absolutely zero subtelty nor any chill to speak of? Then Wild at Heart is the David Lynch movie for you. Cage performs the Leiber and Stoller number “Love Me” to express his undying love to Laura Dern in one of the film’s many scenes where the great love between Sailor and Lula couldn’t be contained by mere traditional filmmaking.

“Love Me Tender” by Nicolas Cage: Over the film’s closing credits, Cage croons the signature Elvis tune “Love Me Tender,” putting the perfect button on the film (and Lynch’s affinity for closing credits music over the falling action of the film).

“Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak: The wildly popular Chris Isaak song got some early shine via its placement in Wild at Heart. In fact, before Isaak went with the famous Herb Ritts-directed, Helena Christensen-starring black-and-white music video, Lynch directed the song’s first music video.

From Twin Peaks

“Laura Palmer’s Theme” by Angelo Badalamenti: Badalamenti’s theme music has become rightfully iconic, and anyone who watched even one episode of Twin Peaks must be intimately familiar with Laura’s theme, a piece of instrumental music that takes turns being sinister and soapy. It’s the most definitive and evocative piece of music in TV history, and it was wisely brought back to the 2017 version of the show.

“Twin Peaks Theme” by Angelo Badalamenti: Those Twin Peaks opening titles were iconic for a reason. Badalamenti’s theme music was as singular as anything else, even during an era as packed with great TV themes as the early ’90s.

From Lost Highway

“I’m Deranged” by David Bowie: Lynch’s predatory, sinister, nocturnal Lost Highway got its perfect musical accompaniment in the form of David Bowie. Those opening titles, with the yellow highway hashmarks coming faster and faster, make up for the perfectly foreboding table setting.

“This Magic Moment” by Lou Reed: Lou Reed’s cover of “This Magic Moment” plays when Balthazar Getty’s auto mechanic first lays eyes on Patricia Arquette’s gangster’s mistress. It’s an impossibly cool track that really goes a long way towards summing up Arquette’s allure in the role.

From Mulholland Dr.

“I’ve Told Every Little Star” by Linda Scott: No movie in Lynch’s filmography uses music as effectively as Mulholland Dr. “Every Little Star” shows up when Justin Theroux’s character is being strong-armed by shadowy figures to cast a pre-packaged, blonde Connie Stevens type as the lead in his film. As lip-synced by Melissa George, the performance is at once perky, artificial, and dreamlike.

“Llorando” by Rebekah Del Rio: Speaking of dream-like, the Club Silencio sequence near the end of Mulholland Dr. might be the single best scene in a Lynch film. And Rebekah Del Rio’s Spanish-language cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” is a mournful and mysterious centerpiece to it.

From Inland Empire

“The Locomotion” by Little Eva: The rhyme or reason for the musical numbers in the sprawling nightmare that is Inland Empire are questions that are best left unasked. “The Locomotion” comes and goes so quickly, you don’t even have much time to wonder why Laura Dern is seeing visions of a dozen women dancing to Little Even in formation.

“Sinnerman” by Nina Simone: The “Sinnerman” sequence arrives for similarly inexplicable reasons, but coming under the closing credits and running at a leisurely 6+ minutes, it allows the film to fade out just as bizarrely as it arrived.

From Twin Peaks (2017)

“Shadow” by Chromatics: The first two episodes of the new Twin Peaks ended after a peek back into the Bang Bang Club, where we got re-acquainted with folks like Shelley Johnson and James Hurley. The scene unfolded leisurely, scored by an on-stage performance of “Shadow.” When the credits casually began to run, the song eased us into a kind of ethereal calm.

“Lark” by Au Revoir Simone: “Lark” got performed at the end of episode 4 and provided the same kind of dreamy act-out.

“Tarifah” by Sharon Van Etten: The best of the closing-credits songs so far this season has been Sharon Van Etten’s stirring “Tarifah,” perhaps the one song in the revival that succeeds on its own merits and not just as twinkly counter-point.

Where to stream Twin Peaks (2017)