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Julee Cruise, otherworldly crooner on 'Twin Peaks,' dies at 65

Lars Gotrich

In the '90s, Julee Cruise filled in for The B-52s member Cindy Wilson on tour. The singer is best known for her work with David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet . Ted Town/Toronto Star via Getty Images hide caption

In the '90s, Julee Cruise filled in for The B-52s member Cindy Wilson on tour. The singer is best known for her work with David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet .

Julee Cruise, the singer best known for her collaborations with director David Lynch and The B-52s , died Thursday. Her husband, author Edward Grinnan, confirmed to NPR that Cruise died by suicide, and had struggled with "lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction" in the past. She was 65.

"She left this realm on her own terms," Grinnan wrote of Cruise in a Facebook post Thursday evening. "No regrets. She is at peace. I played her [the B-52s song] Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all."

Born Dec. 1, 1956 in Creston, Iowa, Cruise was known for her unusual vocal presence, so intensely calm and collected that it could be unsettling — which found a receptive audience in Lynch and score composer Angelo Badalamenti . For the 1986 film Blue Velvet , the two were looking to mimic the effect of This Mortal Coil's version of "Song to the Siren" by Tim Buckley , whose rights proved too costly to clear. The result of their collaboration was the original track " Mysteries of Love ," in which Cruise's dreamlike vocals are set to a slow-moving fog of romantic synths and strings.

Inspired, the trio worked together again on Floating into the Night , Cruise's solo debut. Released in 1989, the album includes songs from Blue Velvet and others that would be featured in Lynch's concert film Industrial Symphony No. 1 and, most famously, the early '90s touchstone Twin Peaks .

An instrumental version of "Falling" was used as the theme song for the ABC television series, and onscreen, Cruise became a regular feature at The Roadhouse, a home for the show's bikers and crooners. She would return for the series' later incarnations, the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and the 2017 limited series Twin Peaks: The Return .

"In the ruckus of beers flying through the air at The Roadhouse, we have Julee singing a beautiful, slow-tempo song, and it's so outrageous," Badalamenti shared with the academic journal Series in 2016 . "You would never have that kind of song in a place like that. The songs with Julee serve a two-fold purpose: They contrast the visuals and they set the tone for the show."

Cruise worked again with Lynch and Badalamenti for her 1993 album The Voice of Love , but after that she wouldn't release music again until The Art of Being a Girl (2002) and My Secret Life (2011). Those post-millennium albums, she said, were something of a reaction to time spent in what she called a "boy's club."

"It's not really about David or Angelo," Cruise told Pitchfork in 2018 . "It's about how we're perceived as women and also how we love women. It's about how I watched my predecessors fight: Madonna , Kim Gordon , Kate Pierson — who is a god and a force to be reckoned with. We're not followers, we're front-runners. I came out of the womb with my fists."

In addition to singing, Cruise was also a Broadway actress, a pilot and a dog trainer. In the '90s, she filled in as a touring member of The B-52s while Cindy Wilson — another tough singer drawn to blurring the lines between kitsch and fine art — focused on raising a family. It was "the happiest time of her performing life," Grinnan writes in his post. "She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred [Schneider] and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world."

At the end of that Pitchfork interview, Cruise mused about her late father and her family's cemetery plot in Minneapolis. "We have our own great graveyard there," she said, "but I'm not gonna get buried. I'm going to have my ashes mixed in with my dogs. They're gonna spread my ashes across Arizona, and Arizona is going to turn blue."

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

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Julee Cruise, Singer and Frequent David Lynch Collaborator, Dead at 65

By Emily Zemler

Emily Zemler

Singer Julee Cruise , whose haunting voice made her a favorite of filmmaker David Lynch , has died at 65.

The news was confirmed by her husband, Edward Grinnan on Facebook , per The Guardian . “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets,” he wrote. “She is at peace.” Grinnan added, “I played her [B-52’s song] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”

Grinnan later told NPR that Cruise died by suicide after struggling with “lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction”; in 2018 Cruise shared on her Facebook page that she was suffering from systemic lupus and was having difficulty walking and standing.

“Deeply saddened by the passing of Julee Cruise today,” actor Kyle MacLachlan, who starred in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks , wrote on Twitter . “Her angelic voice transported us all to another dimension. Now, she’s floating among the angels. Sending love to her family, friends, and fans today.” David Lynch also paid tribute to the “ great singer, and a great human being .”

Born in Iowa in 1956, Cruise worked with Lynch on several occasions. Her best-known song was “Falling,” released as part of her 1989 debut album Floating Into the Night . The instrumental version of the track, written by Angelo Badalamenti, was used as the theme to Lynch’s iconic 1990 TV series, Twin Peaks . She also appeared as a character on the series, reappearing 2001 spin-off film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Twin Peaks: The Return ,  a long-awaited third season of the show that premiered in 2017.

Prior to Twin Peaks , Lynch first utilized Cruise’s music for his 1986 film Blue Velvet , which prominently features her Badalamenti collaboration, “Mysteries of Love.” In 1990, the singer appeared alongside Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as a character named “The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman” in Lynch’s avant-garde theater production, Industrial Symphony No 1.

Cruise worked with other filmmakers, as well. In 1991, she covered Elvis Presley ’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World . Her second album, The Voice of Love , was released in 1993. Her third album, The Art of Being a Girl , didn’t come out until 2002.

Besides her own music, Cruise also performed with other artists. She toured with The B-52’s as Cindy Wilson’s stand-in from 1992 to 1999, and performed with Bobby McFerrin’s improvisational vocal group Voicestra/CircleSong.

In 2004, Cruise provided vocals alongside Pharrell on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s song “Class System.” Cruise’s final album was 2011’s  My Secret Life , a collaboration with Deee-lite’s DJ Dmitry.

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In 2018, Cruise released Three Demos,  a collection of three recordings Cruise cut with Lynch and Badalamenti between recording the song “Mysteries of Love” for  Blue Velvet and her debut album. It included include early versions of “Floating,” “The World Spins,” and “Falling.”

Badalamenti recalled how Lynch impacted the success of Floating Into the Night in a 2014 interview with  Rolling Stone . “It was obviously a different sound,” he said of Cruise’s music. “When it came out, radio stations said they had no slots for it. Is it pop? Not really. Is it R&B? Certainly not. What is it? Even the more avant-garde stations found it unusual, so it was difficult getting airplay. But when ‘Falling’ came out as the main title theme of  Twin Peaks , that was a whole different story.”

In the same interview, Cruise noted she had heard her influence in the music that has come in the decades since with female singers. “They sing like sexy baby girls,” she said. “They all have their own personality.”

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Julee Cruise, Vocalist of ‘Twin Peaks’ Fame, Dies at 65

In projects for the director David Lynch, she brought an eerie, otherworldly style to “Falling” and other songs.

By Neil Genzlinger

Julee Cruise, a singer who brought a memorably ethereal voice to the projects of the director David Lynch — most famously “Falling,” whose instrumental version was the theme for Mr. Lynch’s cult-favorite television show, “Twin Peaks” — died on Thursday in Pittsfield, Mass. She was 65.

Her husband, Edward Grinnan, said the cause was suicide. He said she had struggled with depression as well as lupus.

Ms. Cruise was building a career off Broadway in the early 1980s when serendipity struck: She met the composer Angelo Badalamenti when they worked on a show together.

“I was in this country-and-western musical in the East Village,” she told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1990. “I was a chorus girl with a big skirt and a big wig, singing way too loud. Angelo was doing the music for the show, and we became friends.”

A few years later, Mr. Badalamenti was engaged by Mr. Lynch, who was still early in his career, as a vocal coach for Isabella Rossellini in the 1986 Lynch movie “Blue Velvet” and ended up writing the score for that film as well. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Badalamenti had written a song for the film that needed a vocalist.

“Angelo asked me to find someone to sing a song for the soundtrack called ‘Mysteries of Love,’ but he didn’t like any of the singers I recommended,” she told The Chronicle. “He wanted dreamy and romantic. I said, ‘Let me do it.’”

Ms. Cruise had always thought of herself as “a belter,” as she often put it (she had once played Janis Joplin in a musical revue called “Beehive”), but the voice she came up with for “Mysteries of Love” was something else entirely, enigmatic and wispy. It suited that and other Lynch-Badalamenti compositions perfectly. One writer called her style “angel-on-Quaaludes vocals.”

The three were soon collaborating on Ms. Cruise’s first album, “Floating Into the Night,” which featured songs by the two men, including “Mysteries of Love” and “Falling.” They also collaborated on a stage production called “Industrial Symphony No. 1,” performed at the New Music America festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 1989, with Ms. Cruise performing amid an elaborate set that included an old car.

“Often, Ms. Cruise floated far above the stage, like a prom-gowned, bleached-blond angel,” Jon Pareles wrote in his review in The New York Times. “At one point, her body plummeted to the floor and was packed into the car’s trunk by helmeted workmen; later, she re-emerged to face a video camera and sing ‘Tell your heart it’s me,’ as 10 chorus girls in gold lamé danced next to her image on television screens.”

National exposure came the following April when “Twin Peaks” premiered on ABC, with an instrumental version of “Falling” serving as its theme. Ms. Cruise appeared in the pilot and subsequent episodes as a roadhouse singer.

The show quickly became the talk of television, and in May 1990 it led to an appearance by Ms. Cruise on “Saturday Night Live.” She wasn’t in the original lineup, but the controversial comic Andrew Dice Clay (he called himself “the most vulgar, vicious comic ever to walk the face of the earth”) was the scheduled host, which led to protests from at least one cast member, Nora Dunn, who refused to appear in that episode, and caused the original musical guest, Sinead O’Connor, to drop out at the last minute.

Ms. Cruise was one of two acts summoned to replace her. Mr. Grinnan said in a telephone interview that Ms Cruise, who was still not well known, was working as a waitress at the time and had to skip out on her job. But, he noted, she didn’t call in sick.

“She said that she called in famous,” he said.

Though “Twin Peaks” brought Ms. Cruise wide exposure, Mr. Grinnan said she found a stint touring with the B-52’s in the 1990s to be particularly enjoyable. She replaced Cindy Wilson, an original member, when Ms. Wilson took a break from the band.

“It was probably the happiest performing of her life,” Mr. Grinnan said.

Julee Ann Cruise was born on Dec. 1, 1956, in Creston, Iowa, to Wilma and Dr. John Cruise. Her father was a dentist, and her mother was his office manager.

Ms. Cruise was something of a musical prodigy on the French horn, her husband said, and received a music degree in the instrument from Drake University in Iowa. He said she had applied the delicacy and phrasing of classical French horn to the voice she came up with for the Lynch projects.

But once she graduated, she thought that acting and singing would be more appealing than playing in an orchestra. She went to Minneapolis, a good city for theater, and spent several years performing with the Children’s Theater Company there before moving to New York in about 1983.

After “Twin Peaks,” Ms. Cruise made another album with Mr. Lynch and Mr. Badalamenti, “The Voice of Love” (1993). She also continued acting. Mr. Grinnan said it was her performance in an Off Broadway musical, “Return to the Forbidden Planet,” in 1991 that caught the attention of the B-52’s. Mel Gussow, reviewing that show for The Times, said she stood out.

“Only Julee Cruise invigorates the show with musical personality,” he wrote. “Well remembered for her singing on ‘Twin Peaks,’ she is spunky as well as amusing, although the script unwisely keeps her offstage for most of the first act.”

Ms. Cruise later toured with Bobby McFerrin and worked with electronic musicians like Marcus Schmickler. In 2003 she fulfilled a longtime goal of performing at the Public Theater in New York when she was cast in the musical “Radiant Baby,” about the graffiti artist Keith Haring.

It was a demanding assignment. As The Times wrote , she played “Andy Warhol, Haring’s mother, a demonic nurse and a critic who resembles Susan Sontag.”

Which of the roles was most difficult, a reporter asked?

“The costume changes,” she said. “I’m the oldest person in this cast.”

Ms. Cruise alternated between homes in Manhattan and the Berkshires. In addition to her husband, whom she married in 1988, she is survived by a sister, Kate Coen.

Ms. Cruise reprised her “Twin Peaks” role in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” Mr. Lynch’s 1992 film, and, a quarter-century later, in an episode of Showtime’s reboot of the TV series. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2017, she reflected on her long “Twin Peaks” ride.

“It was so much fun to be part of something that just went ba-boom!” she said. “You didn’t know it was going to do that. What a nice surprise life takes you on.”

Neil Genzlinger is a writer for the Obituaries desk. Previously he was a television, film and theater critic. More about Neil Genzlinger

Julee Cruise, ‘Twin Peaks’ singer and David Lynch collaborator, dies at 65

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Julee Cruise, the ethereal singer who performed the theme song “Falling” for David Lynch’s surrealistic 1990s soap opera “Twin Peaks,” died Thursday. She was 65.

According to a Facebook post from her husband, Edward Grinnan, Cruise “left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace.” Grinnan told NPR that Cruise died by suicide and had struggled with “lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction.”

Cruise’s delicate vocals provided a dreamy, eerie counterpoint to the lush orchestrations of Angelo Badalamenti, the composer who was a collaborator of director Lynch. Cruise’s association with Badalamenti and Lynch defined her career, providing her with her breakthrough hit, “Falling” — a variation of Badalmenti’s instrumental “Twin Peaks” theme — and steady work until the end of her life. Cruise also toured occasionally with the B-52’s, filling in for an absent Cindy Wilson.

Upon learning of Cruise’s death, Lynch posted a tribute to the singer on YouTube: “I just found out that the great Julee Cruise passed away. Very sad news. So it might be a good time to appreciate all the good music she made and remember her as a great musician, great singer and great human being.”

Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie, tweeted, “dad would put [Cruise’s album] ‘Floating Into the Night’ on almost every night as ‘dinner music.’ A staple.”

A native of Creston, Iowa, Cruise was born Dec. 1, 1956. She was drawn to the arts at an early age, acting and playing the French horn while in high school. After graduating from Drake University, she spent time with the Des Moines Symphony but felt pulled toward the theatrical stage. Leaving behind the French horn, she then moved to Minneapolis, where she became part of the Guthrie Theater and, by the early 1980s, was a member of the Children’s Theatre Company.

By the mid-1980s, Cruise had relocated to New York, settling in the East Village. She appeared as Janis Joplin in a production called “Beehive” prior to joining a theatrical workshop from Badalamenti. At the time, the composer was scoring Lynch’s postmodernist noir film “Blue Velvet.” Lynch intended to set a scene to This Mortal Coil’s spectral cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren,” but when the music rights proved too expensive, he asked Badalamenti to write an original song in a similar style. Badalamenti suggested Cruise as the singer for the resulting “Mysteries of Love,” which featured lyrics by Lynch.

“Mysteries of Love” kicked off a period of collaboration between Cruise, Badalamenti and Lynch that spanned records, stage and screen. The core of the collaboration was the original songs Badalamenti and Lynch wrote for “Floating Into the Night,” Cruise’s 1989 debut album. Much of this music was featured in “Industrial Symphony No. 1,” a Lynch theatrical production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music featuring Cruise, but it found a much wider audience when it appeared in “Twin Peaks,” the surreal soap opera Lynch developed for network television.

The series premiered on ABC in April 1990 and became a sensation, sweeping Cruise into the spotlight. “Falling,” the vocal variation of Badalamenti’s haunting theme song, reached charts in the U.K. and Europe, while “Floating Into the Night” became a cult hit in the U.S. Cruise often appeared on “Twin Peaks,” singing in the biker bar the Roadhouse, her soft, gentle presence providing a compelling contrast to the roughneck setting.

When Sinead O’Connor pulled out of “Saturday Night Live” in May 1990 as a protest over guest host Andrew Dice Clay, Cruise stepped in as a last-minute musical guest.

Cruise maintained a fruitful collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti into the mid-1990s. After contributing a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” to the soundtrack of Wim Wenders “Until the End of the World,” the trio worked on her 1993 album, “The Voice of Love,” and she’d appear in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,” the 1992 film sequel to the television series. During this period, Cruise toured with the B-52’s while Cindy Wilson took a leave of absence to focus on family. Her husband would later say she found her time in the B-52’s to be “the happiest time of her performing life.”

Cruise’s solo career slowed in the late 1990s. She would appear onstage and occasionally collaborate in the studio with a host of other musicians — most prominent of these was an appearance on “White People,” the 2004 album by Handsome Boy Modeling School — but new music from her was rare. She released “The Art of Being a Girl,” her first album of self-penned material, in 2002, then waited nearly a decade to issue “My Secret Life,” a 2011 album produced by DJ Dmitry from Deee-Lite.

Cruise reunited with Lynch for “Twin Peaks: The Return,” appearing in its penultimate episode in 2017. A year later, she announced on Facebook she was retreating from live performance due to her diagnosis of systemic lupus.

Cruise is survived by her husband, Grinnan.

In the farewell note he posted on the B-52’s Facebook page, Grinnan wrote, “I played her ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”

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Singer Julee Cruise, who worked with David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet , dies at 65

Cruise's husband wrote on Facebook that "she left this realm on her own terms."

Julee Cruise, the singer with the etherial voice who worked with director David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet , died Thursday. She was 65.

Cruise's husband, Edward Grinnan, shared the news on Facebook , as first reported by The Guardian .

"For those of you who go back I thought you might want to know that I said goodby to my wife, Julee Cruise, today," he wrote. "She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace."

Cruise divulged on Facebook in 2018 that she had been struggling with systemic lupus erythematosus, the autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack its own tissues.

"I can. Hardly walk. And now it's difficult to stand," she wrote at the time, noting "the pain is so bad I cry and snap at people."

Cruise is best known for her collaborations with Lynch. Her song "Falling," the vocal version of Angelo Badalamenti's theme music for the Twin Peaks series, was featured on her debut album Floating Into the Night , released in 1989. Her other big collaboration with Lynch was on his 1986 film Blue Velvet ; the soundtrack featured her song "Mysteries of Love."

Cruise made appearances on Twin Peaks as a singer in the Roadhouse bar, as well as in 1992's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me . The singer later returned for Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017 to perform "The World Spins."

"It's like I'm his little sister: you don't like your older brother telling you what to do," Cruise once told Pitchfork in a 2018 interview. "David's foppish. He can have these tantrums sometimes. And have you ever seen his temper? Anybody can look funny when they get mad. But I love him."

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• Stars we've lost in 2022
• The music of Twin Peaks
• Industrial Symphony No. 1 : The Dream of the Broken Hearted

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Julee Cruise, 'Twin Peaks' singer and David Lynch collaborator, dies at 65

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Julee Cruise, the ethereal singer who performed the theme song "Falling" for David Lynch’s surrealistic 1990s soap opera "Twin Peaks," died on Thursday. She was 65.

According to a Facebook post from her husband, Edward Grinnan, Cruise “left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace.” Grinnan told NPR that Cruise died by suicide, and had struggled with "lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction" in the past.

Cruise’s delicate vocals provided a dreamy and eerie counterpoint to the lush orchestrations of Angelo Badalamenti, the composer who was a chief collaborator of film director David Lynch. Cruise’s association with Badalamenti and Lynch defined her career, providing her with her breakthrough hit in “Falling” — a variation of Badalmenti’s instrumental “Twin Peaks” theme — and steady work until the end of her life. Cruise also toured on occasion with the B-52's, filling in for an absent Cindy Wilson.

Upon learning of Cruise’s death, Lynch posted a tribute to the singer on YouTube, where he said “I just found out that the great Julee Cruise passed away. Very sad news. So it might be a good time to appreciate all the good music she made and remember her as a great musician, great singer, and great human being.”

Duncan Jones, the son of David Bowie, tweeted that “dad would put [Julee Cruise’s album] ‘Floating Into the Night’ on almost every night as ‘dinner music.’ A staple”

A native of Creston, Iowa, Julee Cruise was born on Dec. 1, 1956. Cruise was drawn to the arts at an early age, acting and playing the French horn while in high school. After graduating from Drake University, she spent time with the Des Moines Symphony but felt pulled toward the theatrical stage. Leaving behind the French horn, she moved to Minneapolis where she became part of the Guthrie Theater and by the early 1980s, she was a member of the Children’s Theatre Company.

By the mid-1980s, Cruise relocated to New York, settling in the East Village. She appeared as Janis Joplin in a production called “Beehive” prior to becoming part of a theatrical workshop from Angelo Badalamenti. At the time, the composer was scoring David Lynch’s postmodernist noir film “Blue Velvet.” Lynch intended to set a scene to This Mortal Coil’s spectral cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” but when the music rights proved too expensive, he asked Badalamenti to write an original song in a similar style. Badalamenti suggested Cruise as the singer for the resulting “Mysteries of Love,” which featured lyrics by Lynch.

“Mysteries of Love” kicked off a period of extended collaboration between Cruise, Badalamenti and Lynch, a partnership that spanned records, stage and screen. The core of the collaboration was the original songs Badalamenti and Lynch wrote for “Floating into the Night,” the 1989 debut album from Cruise. Much of this music was featured in “Industrial Symphony No. 1,” a Lynch theatrical production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music featuring Cruise, but it found a much wider audience when it appeared in “Twin Peaks,” the surreal soap opera Lynch developed for network television.

“Twin Peaks” debuted on ABC in April 1990 and it became a pop culture sensation, sweeping Cruise into the spotlight as well. “Falling,” the vocal variation of Badalamenti’s haunting theme song, became a charting hit in the U.K. and Europe, while “Floating into the Night” turned into a cult hit in the United States. Cruise often appeared on “Twin Peaks,” singing in its biker bar, the Roadhouse, her soft and gentle presence providing a compelling contrast to the roughneck setting. When Sinead O’Connor pulled out of “Saturday Night Live” as a protest over guest host Andrew Dice Clay in May 1990, Cruise stepped in as a last-minute musical guest.

Cruise maintained a fruitful collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti into the mid-1990s. After contributing a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” to the soundtrack of Wim Wenders “Until the End of the World,” the trio worked on her 1993 album, “The Voice of Love,” and she’d appear in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,” the 1992 film sequel to the television series. During this period, Cruise toured with the B-52’s while Cindy Wilson took a leave of absence to focus on family. Her husband would later say she found her time in the B-52’s as “the happiest time of her performing life.”

Cruise’s solo career slowed in the late 1990s. She would appear onstage and occasionally collaborate in the studio with a host of other musicians — most prominent of these was an appearance on “White People,” the 2004 album by Handsome Boy Modeling School — but new music from her was rare. She released “The Art of Being a Girl,” her first album of self-penned material, in 2002, then waited nearly a decade to issue “My Secret Life,” a 2011 album produced by DJ Dmitry from Deee-Lite.

Cruise reunited with Lynch for “Twin Peaks: The Return,” appearing in its penultimate episode in 2017. A year later, she announced on Facebook she was retreating from live performance due to her diagnosis of systemic lupus.

Cruise is survived by her husband Grinnan.

In the farewell note he posted on the B-52’s Facebook page, Grinnan wrote “I played her [the B-52’s song] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .

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‘Twin Peaks’ Singer Julee Cruise Dies at 65

by Peter Burditt June 10, 2022, 4:43 pm

Julee Cruise, who is most known for her song “Falling” on David Lynch’s cult TV show Twin Peaks , died on June 9. She was 65 years old.

Videos by American Songwriter

Cruise was known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and director David Lynch from the late ’80s to early ’90s. She also appeared throughout the Twin Peaks show as a roadhouse singer in the original series, in the 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me , and in the 2017 revival of the series Twin Peaks: The Return.  

During her lifetime, Cruise released four albums and collaborated with several artists. She even toured with The B-52s as Cindy Wilson’s stand-in between 1992 and 1999.

After her passing, Edward Grinnan, her husband, wrote on Facebook that “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace.”

Grinnan continued by saying that her time with the B-52s “was the happiest time of her performing life. She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles.”

“She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world.” he concluded. “I played her Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all,”

Though she loved her time with the B-52s, it was her collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti that rocketed her into a cult following. The men stumbled upon her because they needed a song for Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Because their original plan was too expensive, someone suggested that Badalamenti compose a pop song with lyrics by Lynch. They needed someone with an ethereal, haunting voice and Badalamenti recommended Cruise because she sang for a theater workshop that he had produced. 

This was the beginning of a famed friendship as the men worked to write and produce more songs for Cruise. The songs eventually composed the majority of her first studio album Floating into the Night, which was released in 1989. The album charted on Billboard’s charts the next year.

Her next project with Lynch and Badalamenti was the Twin Peaks soundtrack, arguably her most important one. Cruise was featured on “Falling,” “Into the Night,” and “The Nightingale.” The vocal version of “Falling” went gold in the U.S., which is unusual for a television soundtrack song. The instrumental version of the song “Falling” also won a Grammy.

Cruise’s songs continued to be featured in TV shows like Psych , House , and CSI: Miami . She kept singing, providing vocals for Pharrell’s song “Class System” and Delerium’s “Magic.” In 2018, Cruise announced on Facebook that she had systemic lupus causing her great pain. 

Listen to Julee Cruise’s famed song “Falling” below. 

Photo by Amy T. Zielinski/Redferns

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Julee Cruise, singer and frequent David Lynch collaborator, dies aged 65

Singer who had chart hit with Falling in 1990 ‘left this realm on her own terms’ according to husband Tribute: Cruise’s angelic voice guided us through Lynch’s American hell

Julee Cruise, the singer whose ethereal music deepened the drama of David Lynch’s work, has died aged 65.

Her husband, Edward Grinnan, wrote on Facebook: “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace … I played her [B-52’s song] Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”

Cruise’s best-known song was Falling – its instrumental, written by Angelo Badalamenti, was used as the theme to Twin Peaks, Lynch’s iconic TV show that debuted in 1990. Lynch wrote lyrics for Cruise’s vocal version, which reached No 7 in the UK charts, was a hit across Europe, and topped the Australian singles chart. It was included on her debut album Floating Into the Night, released in 1989.

Born in Iowa in 1956, Cruise began her collaborations with Lynch in 1986 for his film Blue Velvet, which prominently features her Badalamenti collaboration Mysteries of Love. In 1990, she appeared as a character called The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman in Lynch’s avant-garde theatre production Industrial Symphony No 1, alongside Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern.

Her songcraft has earned her a passionate cult following, drawn to Cruise’s deceptively pristine and innocent delivery. “Technically this music is so delicate that it’s a challenge just to sing it,” she said in 1990. ‘‘But at the same time, it allows me to be more dramatic, more psychotic than if I were just singing ‘Oh, baby, baby’ into the microphone. Certain things you can’t overact while you’re singing. This, I can overact and get away with it. I can stylise it.”

She appeared as a character in Twin Peaks, singing in the town’s bar, and in its movie spin-off Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. She also featured in Twin Peaks: The Return, Lynch’s third season of the show, in 2017.

In 2018, she said of their working relationship: “It’s like I’m his little sister: you don’t like your older brother telling you what to do. David’s foppish. He can have these tantrums sometimes. And have you ever seen his temper? Anybody can look funny when they get mad. But I love him.”

Another high-profile film collaboration came in 1991, when Cruise covered Elvis Presley’s Summer Kisses, Winter Tears for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World.

Her albums were sporadic: she released The Voice of Love in 1993 – three of its songs from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me – then The Art of Being a Girl in 2002 and My Secret Life in 2011. She also toured as a member of the B-52’s during the 1990s, and other guest appearances include singing alongside Pharrell Williams on the track Class System by hip-hop duo Handsome Boy Modeling School.

In 2018, she announced she had been diagnosed with lupus, and complained of chronic pain.

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Julee Cruise, Ethereal Chanteuse From Twin Peaks , Dies at 65

By Jordan Hoffman

Julee Cruise, the dreamy vocalist best known for her work with director David Lynch , has died according to reports . The singer’s husband confirmed the news on Facebook , writing “I played her [the B-52s’s] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever.” She was 65 years old. 

Cruise’s echoey, ethereal singing was an essential part of what made Twin Peaks such a success when it debuted in 1990. Cruise was heard on three songs on the official soundtrack album, and also appeared in two episodes. She can also be seen in the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return . 

The Iowa-born Cruise originally studied french horn, then met Lynch’s composer Angelo Badalamenti when the two were working at an off-Broadway theater company in New York’s East Village. The first collaboration between the three was the song “Mysteries of Love,” which ran during the final images of the 1985 film Blue Velvet . 

Badalamenti then worked with Cruise to compose the music to her first album, 1989’s Floating Into The Night. Lynch wrote the lyrics. Some of these tracks were later incorporated into Twin Peaks , including an instrumental version of “Falling,” which, renamed as “Twin Peaks Theme,” won Badalamenti a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. 

In 1990, Cruise, Lynch, and Badalamenti released Industrial Symphony No. 1 , a direct-to-video film of a theatrical concert/performance piece given at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage , who were shooting Wild At Heart with Lynch at the time, appear in a prologue , as their characters from that film. (Maybe. It's Lynch, so you never know.) Please take a look, and let this avant-garde early '90s aesthetic wash over you.

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On May 12, 1990, Cruise appeared as a last-minute replacement for Sinéad O’Connor on one of the more infamous episodes of Saturday Night Live . The featured guest that week was Andrew “Dice” Clay , whose not-very-P.C. style of comedy inspired cast member Nora Dunn to take the week off. When word of this spread, O’Connor investigated Clay’s work and decided not to appear as previously planned. Cruise (and the group Spanic Boys ) played in the musical guest spots. 

In 1991, Cruise's cover of “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” appeared on the quintessential alternative rock collection of the day, the soundtrack to Wim Wenders ’s Until the End of the World . 

From 1992 through 1999, Cruise worked as a touring member of the B-52s, while Cindy Wilson was on hiatus. She also performed with Bobby McFerrin ’s Voicestra project. 

David Lynch, very active on YouTube with his daily weather reports, said, with great emotion in his voice that “it might be a good time to appreciate all the good music [Cruise] made and remember her as being a great musician, a great singer and a great human being.” This came after a video in which he suggested listening to “Rock’n Me” by the Steve Miller Band. 

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Julee Cruise, Singer Who Worked With David Lynch on ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 65

Julee Cruise , whose gorgeous collaborations with David Lynch elevated projects such as “ Blue Velvet ” and “ Twin Peaks ,” has died at 65 years old. Her husband, Edward Grinnant, revealed the news on a B-52’s Facebook page, as first reported by The Guardian . Cruise was an occasional touring member of the band, acting as Cindy Wilson’s stand-in on stretches from 1992 to 1999.

“For those of you who go back I thought you might want to know that I said goodby to my wife, Julee Cruise, today,” he wrote. “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace. Having had such a varied music career she often said that the time she spent as a B filling in for Cindy while she was having a family was the happiest time of her performing life. She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world. I played her Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all.”

Lynch posted a video statement on YouTube on Friday: “I just found out that the great Julee Cruise passed away,” he said, amid long pauses. “Very sad news. So it might be a good time to appreciate all the good music she made, and remember her as being a great musician, great singer and great human being. Julee Cruise!”

Cruise was best know for her collaborative work with Lynch. Her biggest hit was “Falling,” with music by “Twin Peaks” composer Angelo Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch. An instrumental version of the song would become the indelible opening theme of “Peaks.” She also appeared on the show several times as a singer at the bar, and her music was included on the show and the soundtrack.

While Cruise’s name wasn’t as ubiquitous as the show’s central figure, Laura Palmer, her voice and enigmatic character on the show lent an eerie musical throughline to the beloved series.

As a recording artist, Cruise released four albums between 1989 and 2011. Her debut, “Floating Into the Night,” included “Falling,” which reached No. 11 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart in 1990.

That same year, Cruise performed the song on “Saturday Night Live,” filling in for Sinéad O’Connor, who backed out last minute in protest of the night’s guest host, Andrew Dice Clay.

Cruise returned to “Twin Peaks” in 2017 for the long-awaited third season of the series, which aired on Showtime (the original two seasons were on ABC). Her appearance included a performance of the song “The World Spins.”

The following year, she released an EP titled “Three Demos,” which features the original demo versions of her best-known work, “Falling,” “Floating” and “The World Spins.”

Cruise’s unique vocal stylings attracted a host of collaborators over the years, including DJ Dmitry and the bands Hybrid and Delerium. She can also be heard on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s song “Class System,” which was produced by Prince Paul and features Pharrell Williams.

Watch Cruise perform “Falling” live below:

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Floating Into the Night

Best New Reissue

By Sam Sodomsky

Pop/R&B

Sacred Bones

August 9, 2023

When she was in high school in Creston, Iowa, Julee Cruise was a popular girl with a host of deep-rooted suburban fears—boys, cars, getting sucked down the bathtub drain—and a secret pastime that even those closest to her never knew about: making prank phone calls. “I’d call people if I was angry at someone and wanted to scare them. Or I’d call and not say anything at all,” she reflected in a 1990 interview. “There’s something kinda voyeuristic about doing something like that.”

Eventually, Cruise made contact with the world. First in Blue Velvet and most prominently throughout Twin Peaks , she sang the eerie, beautiful songs that reached from the screen and pulled you inside David Lynch ’s mind, giving voice to the complex web of emotions that kept his characters suspended in time. Her debut record, 1989’s Floating Into the Night , is the latest from the Lynch universe to receive a welcome vinyl reissue from Brooklyn label Sacred Bones. And while the lyrics were written by Lynch with music composed by his right-hand-man Angelo Badalamenti , and most of the songs will forever be associated with his work, Cruise’s album stands proudly on its own.

Over the past three decades, Floating Into the Night has remained one of the benchmarks that all dream-pop artists are measured against. It set the standard for several reasons. One, of course, is that its songs were paired with some of the most unforgettable, vividly rendered dream sequences ever caught on camera: from the foggy, rainy vistas of Twin Peaks to its dusky barrooms, sepia-toned living rooms, and demonic purgatories. If you have any relationship to the images these songs accompanied, then just hearing the opening baritone-guitar pulses of “Falling” or the wheezing gramophone band of “Floating” can elicit an intense rush of emotions.

Even stripped of this context, Floating Into the Night captured something important about dreams that plenty of other artists in the genre have ignored. Like most dream-pop records, it has the ability to wash over you, misty and serene, with a late-’80s synth gloss that made one of Cruise’s friends dismiss it as “white wine Muzak.” But Cruise and her collaborators also had the ability to shake you awake, to twist an image that should be pretty into something broken and grotesque. There are obvious examples: the nightmarish orchestral stabs that interrupt the whispered revery of “Into the Night,” the hellish fade-in crescendo of “I Remember,” or the disorienting drone and piano solo in “I Float Alone.” Lynch and Badalamenti shared a penchant for long, simmering builds and sudden cuts, dives into sentimentality harshened by pure horror. Their music together accomplishes a similar effect, never allowing you to feel fully at ease.

Cruise was a natural collaborator, able to skate along gracefully without stumbling around these turns. It’s hard to think of another singer who could find so much space and resonance in words like “dark” or “alone,” and by subduing her musical-theater belt into a curling wisp of smoke, her mezzo-soprano takes on a haunted, slow-motion quality: If you close your eyes, you can almost see each word forming as she sings them before dissolving into blackness.

The initial inspiration for “Mysteries of Love,” Cruise’s first collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti, was This Mortal Coil ’s “Song to the Siren,” and you can hear what they admired in the recording: its sparse alien landscape, and the sense of longing in Elizabeth Fraser ’s crystal-clear voice cutting through the mix. But they quickly evolved into their own sound, evoking a less heavenly tableau with more smoke in the air. Within this setting, Cruise favored a hushed delivery in layers and layers of multi-tracked harmony and unison vocals, like Christmas carols by ghostly choirs on deserted streets. (“This will be a very expensive tour because Julee will have to hire nine backup singers,” Lynch jokes in a priceless clip from the recording sessions.)

Both Cruise and Lynch spoke of America in the 1950s as an enduring influence, and the songwriting spans aspirational jazz standards like “The World Spins”—a recording that, no matter how you listen, seem to play on a format that must be handled gently so as not to shatter—to early rock’n’roll throwbacks like “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart.” In the latter, Cruise remembered Lynch instructing the sax player to conjure “big chunks of plastic” from his instrument, suggesting the visceral, physical thrill they still found in music from this era.

Even with these specific reference points, there is no true precedent for Floating Into the Night , and its greatest asset remains its timelessness. Describing her inspiration, Cruise pinpointed the feeling of paranoia that accompanies any surge of joy or new love. “There’s always that voice that says, ‘It’s going to go away,’” she explained. “That voice can be very disturbing and destructive, and that voice is talking all through the album.” If Lynch’s work remains a confounding acquired taste for some, then Floating Into the Night is a record that anyone can at least understand . It is the sound of a burgeoning crush accompanied by the quickening realization of their power to hurt you; it is your hometown at night, with a familiar stillness so quiet it can keep you awake; it is the voice on the other line, distant and mysterious, but close enough so you can hear every breath.

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