Julee Cruise Will Forever Be Rockin’ Back Inside The Hearts of ‘Twin Peaks’ Fans

When vocalist Julee Cruise died yesterday at age 65, she left behind a tremendous body of work and a legacy that included live performances with the B-52’s and Bobby McFerrin, as well as studio contributions to songs by everyone from Moby to Handsome Boy Modeling School. In the grand scheme of things, however, it’s a fair bet that Cruise will be best remembered for her collaborations with two very specific collaborators – Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch – on the soundtracks for Blue Velvet and, perhaps most famously, Twin Peaks.

Born in Creston, Iowa, Cruise’s first big gig wasn’t as a vocalist but as a French horn player, playing the instrument so well in high school that she majored in French horn music at Drake University and earned a spot in the Des Moines Symphony. From there, she moved to Minneapolis and joined the Children’s Theater Company, but after successfully scoring a role in the play The Boys in the Live Country Band, she moved to New York, which is where Lynch discovered her and hired her to serve as the vocalist for the song “Mysteries of Love” in his 1986 film Blue Velvet.

Thankfully, the combination of Cruise’s vocals, Badalamenti’s music, and Lynch’s lyrics on “Mysteries of Love” wasn’t just a one-off success: they worked so well together that the songwriters penned an entire album for Cruise: Floating Into the Night. Released in September 1989, the LP presented the world at large to “Falling,” a.k.a. the opening theme to Twin Peaks, almost seven months before the series made its debut on ABC.

“When David came into the studio, it made a big difference,” Cruise told Pitchfork in 2018. “It was really a great team because Angelo and I are so malleable and so good at being chameleons. I think Floating into the Night is one of the best albums, front to back. It’s beautiful and I’m so proud of it. And I didn’t do it—I played my instrument and I interpreted it. David is such a great lyricist. To do simplicity is the hardest thing. ‘The things I touch are made of stone / Falling through the night alone’—it’s simplicity in such a beautiful way.”

In addition to “Falling,” the album contains “The Nightingale,” which would later make its way onto the series’ soundtrack as well, and “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart,” a tune that – although it wasn’t on the soundtrack – can be heard playing on the jukebox in the Double R Diner in “Episode 14,” a.k.a. the one where viewers finally found out who killed Laura Palmer. 

Cruise also turned up on the soundtrack to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the cinematic prequel to the TV series, and when Lynch decided to return to the small Washington town for a sequel series in 2017, darned if Cruise wasn’t there, too, performing “The World Spins” – which originally made its debut on Floating Into the Night – in the penultimate episode of Twin Peaks: The Return …although, lest we forget, she also performed it in the original series.

While Twin Peaks may have defined Cruise’s career for the average pop culture consumer, she continued to record over the years, releasing three additional albums – 1993’s The Voice of Love, 2002’s The Art of Being a Girl, and 2011’s My Secret Life – and, as noted, performed and recorded with numerous other artists as well. 

Cruise’s health problems were well-documented in recent years – she suffered from systematic lupus, which ultimately led to her passing – but when she passed away, she did so with her husband, Edward Grinnan, at her side.

“She left this realm on her own terms,” Grinnan wrote on Facebook. “No regrets. She is at peace … I played her [B-52’s song] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)