Twin Peaks is a show organized around grief. Propelled ahead by the communal and personal mournings of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Her death and the secrets it forces from the shadows act as guides through the dense connections that jigsaw through the town. Even when outsider Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives, the unrelenting draw of the painful darkness oozes into his experience.
David Lynch and Mark Frost’s narrative approach to that reality blends melodrama with noir, and more than a heaping dose of surrealist screwball comedy. Add to that Lynch’s aesthetic tendencies toward the bizarre and you arrive at a television show, and later film, that is a kaleidoscopic reverie on the pairing of suffering and hope. How on Earth do you then hire someone to write music for that mood? Easy. You turn to Angelo Badalamenti.
Badalamenti, who died earlier this week, is as elemental to Twin Peaks as Lynch, Frost, or any of their fictive creations. Twin Peaks was Badalamenti’s second collaboration with Lynch, following his dazzling work on Blue Velvet (1986). He joined that film initially as Isabella Rossellini’s vocal coach. Yet, his rapport with Lynch led him all the way to the score.
If that work is defined by fitful and dark strings, the track “Mysteries of Love” tips the hand toward the ambient jazz and New Age underpinnings that encompass Twin Peaks. Badalamenti’s repertoire of original themes and variations in Twin Peaks shape that master tone to meet the ticks and quirks of Lynch and Frost’s small-town menagerie. Echoey synths and mournful piano for “Laura Palmer’s Theme.” Thumping jazz and horns for “Audrey’s Dance.” Even the syncopated drums and guitars of “The Bookhouse Boys.”
The fickleness of awards is no mystery, but even the Recording Academy had to bow down to Badalamenti in 1990, awarding him a “Best Grammy Pop Instrumental Performance” for the “Twin Peaks Theme.” Through two original seasons, a prequel movie, and the long-awaited third season in 2017, Badalamenti’s sonic weavings matched every curveball Twin Peaks ushered his way. Windom Earle? Coop on a fishing trip? Check and check again.
On top of its multitudinous gifts of narrative payoff and answered questions, that third season delivered a suite of new work from the maestro. After 25 years away, Badalamenti built on his melodious foundation to push the sounds of Twin Peaks to new heights, outdoing what was an already imposing body of work. We must always give the likes of John Williams their due for reinventing franchise themes over decades, but to do so while not noisily celebrating Badalamenti’s corresponding work remains criminal.
Badalamenti’s work on Twin Peaks is only one corner of a scoring and composition career in entertainment that started with Gordon’s War (1973) and will close as the final batch of unreleased projects trickle out. He also produced singles, albums, and other musical collaborations, including the 2018 “Thought Gang” album with Lynch. Angelo Badalamenti was an unrelentingly creative force, and he leaves behind a body of work well worthy of remembering, revisiting, and tapping a shoe along to.
Devin McGrath-Conwell holds a B.A. in Film / English from Middlebury College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting from Emerson College. His obsessions include all things horror, David Lynch, the darkest of satires, and Billy Joel. Devin’s writing has also appeared in publications such as Filmhounds Magazine, Film Cred, Horror Homeroom, and Cinema Scholars.
