Julee Cruise's Floating Into The Night

in 1986, david lynch's blue velvet was released and it featured a lovely love theme called "mysteries of love", with lyrics by lynch, music by his then new partner angelo badalamenti, and sung by a newcomer named julee cruise. and this magic team actually got together out of necessity.

lynch wanted to use a song from this mortal coil's gothic album it'll end in tears called "song to the siren" (originally written by tim buckley but performed in this supergroup by cocteau's twins' robin guthrie and the lovely elizabeth fraser - one day i'll write about the cocteaus... charming scottish band). but this mortal coil's ivo watts-russell didn't want to give permission to use that song because he considered it to beautiful to be used in a film (he didn't know who lynch was at that time, 8 years later he would give him permission to use the song in lost highway, but that's another story). so lynch had to come up with a song that "sounded" like "song to the siren", thus ending with the dreamlike sounding "mysteries of love".

this collaboration continued until 1990 when david lynch made twin peaks for TV, he needed songs (and a singer) for his surreal picket fence town and its cryptic lounge, and he decided to use julee cruise again. while recording several songs with her and badalamenti, they decided they could extend the partnership and record a complete album and a performance to be released on video.

the live performance was recorded and released as industrial symphony no. 1 - the dream of the broken hearted and yes, it's a surreal presentation that includes julee cruise floating in the air, a 20-foot two-legged skinned deer, topless dancers crawling around a car, a midget and beautiful music. this was the first time i had heard of julee cruise. i was 15 years old, starting to get into the world of david lynch, and this was THE only video of his that we had in our archaic blockbuster in those days. apart from being kind of scared with the whole visual approach, which was new for me, the music didn't let me escape. after seeing the credits and reading julee cruise's name... it just made me realized that her album had been in my brother's collection for almost two years. it happened that a friend of his film studying girlfriend lent it to him and forgot about it. after the film ended, i didn't waste a minute. i searched my brother's collection and yes, there it was.

the album is called floating into the night, and it's devided in two parts (side a and side b we may say). side a begins with the song "floating", and the rest of that side is devoted to the joy, the beauty and that lovely feeling that love will last forever. side b starts with the song "into the night", where love comes crashing down and we realize its downside.

listening to the album's first side is like being in a 50s school dance, slow dancing with the one you think you love and just letting yourself get carried away by the moment, not caring what's going to happen the next week, the next day, even the next five minutes. of course, all this drenched in a cloth made of dreams. you know that feeling when you wake up late at night and you're between sleep and complete consciousness...well, go right there to that 50s dance and that's the music you'll hear. now, side 2's lyrical darkness is gorgeously displayed in the music as well. here dancing is no longer required (or desired) and lying in a bed gripping a pillow is a more likely situation that brings to mind the despair felt when these songs swirl into your head. love and dreams come shattering down. yes, the end result could be a little downer, but it's just part of the theme of the whole album.

if you're feeling happy or feeling deppressed, this album has it all. but the most astonishing thing is that brilliant team work. angelo badalamenti's fever-dream cool jazz-pop, david lynch's incredibly simple love words and julee cruise's angelic voice. each life has a soundtrack, and this is surely sounding most of the time in my head and in my heart. it IS my favourite album of all times. if i ever get imprisoned and i have to take one CD... this one's the one.
have a happy week, everyone (K)

(yes, edilma, i owe you a copy, sssshhhhh ;)

PS: sorry for the length, i got carried away. it's like when you love... ok, just kidding... or not? :o DOUBLE SSSHHHH