Lynchian Sounds: five modern songs to fit David Lynch’s cinematic world
David Lynch’s impact is so great they had to invent a word for it – ‘Lynchian’. It’s a term that can only really be defined through his work and influence but also spans far beyond that. It goes beyond cinema ever as everything from art to writing to interior design and so on can be Lynchian. Music certainly can, and these modern acts capture it.
But what is ‘Lynchian’? It’s the rich colour of Twin Peaks’ Red Room or the tacky sinisterness of One-Eyed Jacks. It’s the glamour of Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet and the darkness you know that lurks around it. It’s the pure gloom of Eraserhead but the odd beauty that cuts through it. It’s the meeting of distant dreams and real-life nightmares, the thin line between something seductive and something terrifying.
In short, ‘Lynchian’ is a stand-in for hypnotic contradictions in a way, but mostly for a distinctive stylishness in a very distinctive way. It’s not just aestheticism, but it’s an aestheticism that matches with substance and deep feeling. Even in Lynch’s most unspoken and ambient moments, he got into the pits of your gut and made you feel a little odd.
Lynchian music does the same. These are songs that push you instantly into a scene, a vibe or a feeling. They have a sort of uncanniness to it as if they could just as easily soundtrack complete horror as they could fun or love. There is a nostalgic element to it, but also a separation as they exist solely in their own world. All of them could be adopted into Lynch’s, though, as any one of these five songs could’ve found a place on one of his soundtracks.
Five modern ‘Lynchian’ masterpieces
Picture Parlour – ‘Face In The Picture’
Everything about Picture Parlour’s debut EP, Face In The Picture, was Lynchian, and that was purposeful. As the music video for this titular track floats into the radiator as a homage to Eraserhead, the band’s hyper-cinematic musical energy matches up.
They’re the sort of band that would have been playing at The Roadhouse, perfectly capturing Lynch’s nostalgia factor with their 1970s and ‘80s energy but also paired with a dreamlike timelessness. With lyrics that weave between the mundane and the grandiose – that’s exactly what the director was all about.
San Vito Ryder – ‘Crimson Sunset’
San Vito Ryder may have come directly from the mind of David Lynch – we cannot be sure that he didn’t. On the darker side of the spectrum, the artist sits on that exact line where the director’s dreamy quality gave way to something more sinister, but still with all the style.
It’s grittier, once again sounding like the music he booked to play at his fictional favourite venue, The Roadhouse. And from videos of San Vito Ryder performing live, he would’ve made it a movie scene donning a slick suit to throw himself around like a 1950s greaser meeting scary 1970s Nick Cave. Somewhere between dapper and danger, just like a Lynch brainchild.
Holly Macve and Lana Del Rey – ‘Suburban House’
That scene in Twin Peaks where Maddy and Donna sing with James, with the two girls sounding so angelic—in a modern take, maybe this would be the song.
Having Lana Del Rey on this list is a no-brainer. From her debut album and throughout her deeply influential career, David Lynch’s impact has been there at every turn in her nostalgic, mysterious glamour and even her choice of covers, nodding to him with a rendition of ‘Blue Velvet’.
But alongside Holly Macve, another utterly hypnotic singer who moves in the same lane of writing melodramas about small, suburban scenes, all three are a match made in heaven. This feels like exactly the kind of song Isabella Rossellini might sing in a re-do of Blue Velvet, seeming to perfectly soundtrack the film and director’s interest in the way a simple, suburban house can so quickly turn sinisterly cinematic.
Orville Peck – ‘Roses Are Falling’
I can picture it. Wild At Heart, the dance scene. Nicolas Cage’s character, Sailor, grabs the mic and turns to Laura Dern’s Lula, the object of his passion. Instead of opening his mouth to sing Elvis Presley’s ‘Love Me’, he sings this instead: Orville Peck’s nostalgia-fuelled country love song.
“You know darling, you bring out the worst in me / Sometimes, when I’m around you, I feel like pure evil / I guess they say nobody’s perfect / But they’ve never met a devil like you,” Peck sings but it could just be dialogue from the film, delivered in the character’s southern drawl. As a song about an obsessive lover on the run, willing to stake his life for the person he’s infatuated with – it’s Sailor and Lula’s anthem and a gorgeously Lynchian love tune.
Ethel Cain – ‘Onanist’
“Eraserhead and his factory photographs impacted me in ways I can’t describe in words. The world is darker without you, Mr. Lynch,” Ethel Cain wrote on Instagram on the day David Lynch sadly passed. But really, no one ever needed a statement to know just how much of an influence Lynch had on her—it’s obvious.
Perverts could just be a David Lynch soundtrack. Her divisive yet intoxicating ambient project feels just like the buzz of the electrical wires that the director was obsessed with. Inspired by a deeply industrial yet normal landscape, it’s an album that seems to exist fully in his world.
But on the track ‘Onanist’, I can’t shake the image of Laura Palmer, the ultimate victim of “the evil that men do”. Throughout Twin Peaks, Palmer is as complex as a female character comes as she’s simultaneously dragged into a complete hell while also appearing in glimmers as enigmatic and alluring. As Cain whispers, “It feels good” over and over at the end of this harrowing musical piece, that complex, and the complex Lynch appeared so interested in, feels viscerally present.
