R.I.P Julee Cruise (The World Spins)

 

Sometimes, a certain piece of music, or the resonance of a particular performance, just stays with you through the years - regardless of how often you hear it, or how celebrated or overlooked the artist attached to it may have been. Clearly, Julee Cruise - who just passed at the tragically premature age of 65, was a talented artist, and one with her own (ethereally distinctive) voice. Nevertheless, she wasn't necessarily a household name (in recent years, at least). So I think it would be foolish not to admit that she wasn't largely ingrained in the psyche of many of us, through her associations with the film and TV director, David Lynch - and especially, as one of the angels presiding over the world of his 'Twin Peaks'.

That's hardly to diminish her legacy, however. Lynch has long been the master of embedding immaculately appropriate pieces of music within his film and TV work, in order to magnify their (often devastating) emotional impact. I think we might argue that Cruise's dreamlike and unworldly interpretations of songs like 'Falling' [1.], 'The World Spins' [2.], or 'Rocking Back Inside My Heart' [3.], are the absolute epitome of that. More than anything else, she seemed to capture perfectly a sense of the fragility of love, and the yearning for something pure within a  corrupt world, lying at the very heart of Lynch's small-town vision. As is the case for many other Lynch-casualties, a small part of me may never actually make it back from the Black Lodge. It's even less likely now - without Julee's pristine voice to guide us.

Those seeking a little more factual background regarding Julee Cruise's life and work can find it here. But for now, it seems far more appropriate to just let her music, and those truly timeless performances, speak for themselves...

[1.]: Julee Cruise, 'Falling', Lynch/Badalamenti, Warner Bros/WEA,1989 (From the Album, 'Falling Into The Night', and the Soundtrack to: Mark Frost/David Lynch, 'Twin Peaks' (Series 1), CBS, 1990.

[2.]: Julee Cruise, 'The World Spins', Lynch/Badalamenti, (From the Soundtrack to: Mark Frost/David Lynch, 'Twin Peaks' (Series 2), CBS, 1991.

[3.]: Julee Cruise, 'Rocking Back Inside My Heart', Lynch/Badalamenti, Warner Bros/WEA,1989 (From the Album, 'Falling Into The Night', and the Soundtrack to: Mark Frost/David Lynch, 'Twin Peaks' (Series 2), CBS, 1991