Julee Cruise
Floating Into the Night
1989, Warner Bros.
February is a miserable month, maybe even the worst month. By this point, I’m not just over winter, but I’m actively offended by it. My Texan body chemistry craves warmth. Any weather that makes me put on gloves and a scarf is an insult and I take it very personally. In February, I blame the cold for all of my problems.
Why is this article late? February, goddammit. It fucks me up. I’d be happy to sleep through it.
Sure, winters here aren’t too bad compared to other places. It’s not unusual to get a week or so of T-shirt weather while northerners are seeing blizzards. However, in February the threat of an Arctic blast always looms. The 65-degree days will become 25-degree days again, often overnight, and I’ll not only be shivering but feel seriously jerked around.
While I’m bitching, the Super Bowl can go to hell and I don’t think that anyone likes Valentine’s Day. Even February’s special traditions suck.
The only nice thing I have to say about February is that Twin Peaks music sounds extra good during this time of year. Perhaps it means something that the series begins in February (see Agent Cooper’s famous “11:30 AM, February 24th” monologue in the pilot).
In even Angelo Badalamenti’s most beautiful pieces of music for David Lynch’s film and television projects–and most of them are stunningly beautiful–there’s a disturbance in between the notes, a demon hiding in the silk. You can’t see her, but she’s there giving an eerie edge to these hushed and pretty pop songs. It’s this tension that makes Floating Into the Night a good fit for the unrest of February.
Continue reading “Things I Will Keep #27: JULEE CRUISE, Floating Into the Night”
Life is full of unanswered questions, unsolved mysteries, curious encounters and stories that end abruptly. If you step outside at all, people appear and disappear in your life all of the time. We overhear the conversations of strangers. We see scenes of other peoples’ dramas. We hear gossip about people we’ve never met and never will meet. It happens so often that we don’t even think about it.
One of many refreshing left turns in the Twin Peaks revival is its disinterest in traditional television cliffhangers. Episodes end with dangling questions galore and turning points left up in the air, but David Lynch never gives us a hard cut to credits after a gunshot in the night. Instead he often goes out on a song, a “live” performance on stage in the long-standing Roadhouse. Like Mr. Rogers changing his shoes and jacket, the moment the neon bar sign hits the screen, you know the show is almost over. What young band in Lynch’s iTunes is playing this week?
Composer Angelo Badalamenti was the Great Missing Man For the first few hours of Twin Peaks season 3.
SPOILER CITY AHEAD