Day 295: Angelo Badalamenti and Twin Peaks
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
295 —Angelo Badalamenti and
Twin Peaks
23-May-1972
(Dienstag–Tue.)
TRANSCRIPT
A little bit of most things. Not at all happy with
the horn playing. Until I change my problems, it’s
hopeless.
Delightful Mozart at night. Acted as a guide for some
American tourists—and spread the goodwill.
REFLECTIONS
Goodwill.
My horn
playing is not going well? What happened? Weeks ago,
I thought I was doing well. Thank goodness I get to a
better mood with Mozart (opera unknown) and share
some goodwill with tourists. Nice.
2009–NJ
is closed. It’s
Memorial Day weekend. I’m looking to move—the rent
keeps going up (a lot) every year. Why is this
happening? Well, the prices of houses doubled a few
years ago. The bubble burst (as the economy) and no
one can afford to buy a house anymore. So, this
morning I look at real estate rentals on the web. NJ
is now too expensive. The state is doomed. Close it
down. For me to get a normal and decent rent, I would
need to move to PA. Many people do this. The commute
could then be 1-1/2 hours or more. We’re doomed.
Weird
TV episode. On this
lazy day in 2009, I happen to catch a rerun of “Twin
Peaks” from director David Lynch—the strange,
intriguing, and often bizarre tale of events in a
small Pacific Northwest town. Are you old enough to
remember this series? No. Here’s the amazing part.
This one episode was sort of a dream-like fantasy
sequence—rooms with red curtains and strange
characters—and the dialog was rendered as captions on
the screen, while the characters spoke in strange,
partially-processed, voices. You never see this kind
of dialog-processing on TV often (excluding the
vocoder effects on sci-fi movie). What did we do in
Vienna? Process voices. That Twin
Peaks happened
to be on, and that it was such a bizarre episode was
strange. Coincidence? Or fate?
Music
for
Twin Peaks.
While we
are on the topic of coincidences. Guess who wrote the
music for Twin
Peaks?
Composer, Angelo Badalamenti—a well-known and highly
respected film composer of many Hollywood films. His
music in Twin
Peaks (dramatic,
eerie, haunting, nostalgic) is important to the drama
and atmosphere of the series. So, why am I bringing
this up? My sister-in-law’s father,
lyricist-songwriter Frank Stanton, was a partner with
Mr. Badalamenti—Andy Badale, before he became Mr.
Badalamenti. My brother Steve and his wife Becky told
me this story. I once met Mr. Stanton, Becky’s
father, in Nashville. I admired that he was able to
be a professional lyricist-songwriter for his entire
life. Quite an accomplishment. I believe he had a
couple of hits during his life, perhaps World War II.
Unfortunately, there is not much Internet information
on Mr. Stanton.
Mr. Badalamenti’s film score accomplishments are also
noteworthy, including his first David Lynch
score, Blue
Velvet. There
are some interesting interviews with Mr. Badalamenti
on YouTube (see below).
Links:
Angelo Badalamenti’s
Twin Peaks
Theme on
YouTube
Angelo Badalamenti
(Official
Website)
An interview with Angelo
Badalamenti on
YouTube
How the
Twin Peaks
theme was composed
on
YouTube
John
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