Julee Cruise, the voice of 'Twin Peaks,' dies of lupus

Twin Peaks

, the legendary series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, lives on in our memory, inevitably associated with the iconic theme song by

.

In the opening credits, when the little bird, the waterfalls, and the Welcome to Twin Peaks sign appeared, only those strange and enigmatic chords were played.

But the song composed by Badalamenti had already appeared with

, lyrics by David Lynch and the title of Falling, on the singer's first album,

(1989), released a year ago.

The singer died this Friday at the age of 65, after

, a disease she suffered from when she was young, although she did not make it public until 2018.

If the atmospheric

became an instant classic, Julee Cruise's no less vaporous song also rose, through a

video clip , to the charts of half the world as a result of the planetary success of a series that broke all the schemes of what that had been seen on the small screen so far, and that was based on the very classic premise of finding a corpse.

Although everyone wondered

(Bob), the answer was in the atmosphere, in the strangeness that was hidden in the everyday, in the bizarre of every day, in the indescribable taste of cherry pie. .

Julee Cruise and David Lynch had met when the filmmaker was involved in the project of

(1986), which marked his first collaboration with Badalamenti.

They thought of ethereal and mysterious songs that Isabella Rossellini, Lynch's partner at the time and the film's star, could sing along with Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan and Denis Hopper.

One of them ended up being

, written by Lynch, sung by Julee Cruise, and also included on that first album produced by the musician and filmmaker.

The inspiration for

comes from the (again, mythical)

, version of the homonymous theme by Tom Buckley for the first album of This Mortal Coil,

, since It was not a band to use.

The producer of the 4AD label, Ivo Watts-Russell created what is now known as dream-pop, atmospheric songs with ethereal voices like those of Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins) or Lisa Gerrard (Dead can Dance), and summoned the artists of their label to record versions of classics brought to the 4AD sound on the three great albums by This Mortal Coil, with results as magical as that

, which ended up recurring in commercials in subsequent decades.

At that time, the rights to the song were already too expensive, even for David Lynch, and that is why he could not use it, which reverberated in favor of the signing of the unknown Julee Cruise, who had been

.

The happy trio of Lynch, Badalamenti and Cruise gave a lot of themselves.

Together they put on a show called Industrial

, in which

, the couple from

(1990), broke up on the phone, to make way for a concert by Cruise, who first appeared singing

and then going down harnessed and dressed like a good fairy from

, from the top of the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the tune of

.

In Twin Peaks, Cruise appeared singing

against the background of

, among other cameos, and his voice was played repeatedly.

He repeated in the movie

(1992), and in the last and revolutionary third season of the series, released in 2017. They even signed a version of Elvis Presley,

, for the movie, otherwise quite unsuccessful, by Wim Wenders Until the end of the world (1991).

Julee Cruise's second album,

(1993), picked up some of her Lynchian collaborations such as

or the title track, which appeared in an instrumental version on

, but it no longer received the attention derived from the Twin Peaks phenomenon.

Julee Cruise was slow to release a third album,

(2002), now without the collaboration of her mentors, and even longer to release the fourth and last,

(2011), which included a version of the

, by Donovan.

Forgotten by the general public, however,

, doing all kinds of things, such as appearing in an Off-Broadway play playing

, touring with Cindy Wilson of the B-52s, or being part of the Bobby McFerrin choir.

She has also collaborated with artists such as Khan (the magnificent

), Hybrid (

, among others), Supa DJ Dmitry (ex-Dee-Lite), Pharrell Williams (

), among many others.

with her languid and precious style.

, by REM, or Space Oddity, by David Bowie, among others.

Although at times it could seem that she had disappeared, Julee Cruise was always there.

She left her personal mark scattered like fireflies in the night throughout three decades of music history, but you just have to close your eyes to see her fall, again and again, always to the tune of the immortal

.

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