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1. Blue Velvet (1986): In Dreams
The sound design of Blue Velvet, a product of audiophile David Lynch and his longtime
sound designer Alan Splet, is noteworthy considering the in-universe importance of songs,
sounds, and the severed ear that the camera pulls into to as if to enter a terrible dream. But
even in the wider context of the film, the “Beer at Ben’s” and the “joyride” afterward is
dreamlike. We are led off the rails as we are shown the peak of protagonist Jeffery Beaumont’s
(Kyle MacLachlan) involvement in a criminal underworld in Lumberton, NC. Jeffery has gone
from finding a severed ear to being caught in a relationship with Rossellini’s Dorothy Vallens by
her captor, Frank Booth. Now Frank takes his “neighbor” with his crew for a dire party and a
“beer at Ben’s” along with a number of psychological and physical tortures until eventually
being beat unconscious. Later, Jeffery wakes up.
Director David Lynch does not just use Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” as diegetic music in
this scene; Dennis Hopper’s character, the inhuman Frank Booth, is unable to divorce himself
from the reality of the music. Nor is the dancing woman on top of the car. In general, the music
of Blue Velvet is Needle-Drop music, harkening back to popular music of the 50s and 60s. The
first scene establishes the themes unmistakably: picturesque suburban Americana that is
rotting underneath. His opening unambiguously establishes the rose bushes and picket fences
and other tenets of small town America and then juxtaposes it all with the swarming bugs
beneath. The time period is arguably contemporary to the 1980s without many fashion choices
or other indication. The nostalgic songs of a bygone era give to the setting an unchanging,
ambiguous quality, perfect for Lynch to twist in a dark subversion of midcentury American
exceptionalism. These characters are aging ungracefully and are perhaps unaware. Perhaps the

2. 50s and 60s were good to them and they never mentally progressed any further. Perhaps they
are even unaware of anything beside themselves, indifferent when they dance or perform to
yesteryear’s music, and even lack understanding of themselves and their uncanny, caked-on
makeup.
The anempathetic nature of “In Dreams” to the disturbing and violent actions of Frank is
an essential part of a contradictory character. Frank Booth is both sentimental to the extreme
and explosively destructive, uncaring. He is infantile in his love of physical sensations: certain
feelings on his skin like the titular blue velvet as well as the 1951 Tony Bennet song of the same
name. Certain phrases he repeats, at odds with whatever is going on around him, as a child
might repeat phrases they don’t understand. Several times he refers “In Dreams “ incorrectly as
“Candy Colored Clown.” And he is classically Freudian both in his stagnant development in the
oral stage. All of his pleasure seems to come from his inhaler. Also typical is his Freudian
exclamation when he sees Isabella Rossellini’s character unclothed front: “Mommy!” But in this
same scene he is commanding and paternal, demanding bourbon and insisting on being
addressed as “Daddy.” His actions seemimpulsive though he is unable to handle anyone
looking at him, perhaps demonstrating shame. Frank’s seemingly boundless appetite for sex
and violence are contrasted with his impotence. Sexually frustrated, he squeezes every possible
usage out of “fuck” in verb, noun, or adjective form and uses it as shorthand for dominating,
killing, or destroying. He dominates Jeffery in this scene with the refrain: “In dreams/ You’re
mine/ All of the time.” There is no separation for him between making love and exerting power
over someone and channels this through the words of “In Dreams.” The music does not seem
to fit the actions of the scene, but it is a telling reflection of a mind at odds with itself. Perhaps

3. the mantras Frank makes from these songs help him justify his behaviors, because as Orbison
intones: “I can’t help it.”
Structurally, “In Dreams” is comforting and familiar. It stays firmly in the uncomplicated
key of C major. The first half of the introduction follows the incredibly prevalent, predictable,
and sonically effective “Circle Progression” of vi ii V I which is based on the Circle of Fifths. The
second half of the intro is also hardly groundbreaking, substituting the ii chord for IV, making it
fit into “the 50s progression” of I vi IV V. By the time we reach the first verse, (“I close my
eyes/Then drift away”) we have settled into what basic pattern will be build the song’s
remainder: ii V I, the staple progression also known as the Minor 2 5 1 turnaround.
Several embellishments are added to make things richer, such as extensions of G major
chords into G 7th chords or C major into C 6. Another addition to make things richer here is a
major seventh jump between the start of the second line of the second verse (“In…”) and the
phrase “…dreams/I talk/ with you.” Frank cuts off Ben’s performance just as some more
interesting melodic development is happening: the phase “All of the time” adds an unexpected
F sharp to the melody, leaving the melody in the mode of D Mixolydian. It goes back to the
dominant (the V chord, G major), but Franks stops the playback before reaching the tonic so to
the musical tension stays unresolved. It is an odd moment to end with. Perhaps that musical
shift that caused Frank’s grimace and made him shut off the music. Then comes an inspired
scene transition as the characters blink out of existence to the sound of screeching tires. Blue
Velvet does not have explicitly supernatural elements like other Lynch work, but the abstract
divorce of image and sound here unnerves us as it characterizes Frank Booth as a strange,
menacing, and inhuman force.

4. Upon pulling over, the ambient noise of crickets is apparent. It becomes less so once the
exchange between Frank and Jeffery escalates. Considering Lynch’s previous characterization of
insects as representing the unwholesome underworld, this is the ambient evil surrounding the
characters at all times that is eventually drowned out by the steadily growing domination of
Frank and his beloved song. When Frank demands “In Dreams” is played for the second time,
we are able to hear more after the part he cut off before, though he again seems fazed when
the melody shifts into D Mixolydian and ceases to repeat the lyrics. With their verbal exchange
over, we can hear the new section and its variation on the theme including the “Hollywood
cadence” from C major to F minor. Now there is a slightly darker, exotic mood because of the
addition of the seemingly out-of-place F minor chords that are actually borrowed from the
parallel mode of C minor (an example of modal interchange). Things intensify most once with
the phrase “Goodbye/It’s too bad/That all these things…” and Frank decides to lay into Jeffery
with his fists. As Jeffery loses consciousness, Orbison’s singing goes up an octave to a register
that is high like a scream, again ending the song without a resolution, on another modal
interchange with D7 in place of the normal D minor.
We see a candle burning in the transition from waking to sleeping life and hear
wooshing noises and the sounds of the scene fading away, distorted. The motif of the flame
appears in the lyrics of the titular song that inspired both Lynch and the characters in the
universe of the film, “Blue Velvet” by Tony Bennett: “Our love is a love I held tightly/Feeling the
rapture grow/Like a flame burning brightly/But when she left, gone was the glow of/Blue
velvet.” This is how Lynch gives an organic aspect to elements of subtext. Lynch emphasizes
visceral, physical sensations and basic human senses. Especially important for Lynch are the

5. facial features, so there are human elements grafted into the sound design. In Eraserhead,
Lynch worked with Splet to establish electrical sparking as a source of evil and we hear these
familiar ominous sounds before becoming involved with Dorothy Vallens for the first time. But
in this scene, we are made to associate breathing sounds with dread from the sounds we hear
as Jeffery goes unconscious, to the characteristic inhaling that Frank is always doing. The fear
should come from not the mechanical, but the living. This includes especially the aspects
human face, in the uncanny form of Ben’s clownish, effeminate face, or from lipstick smearing
onto it, knives cleaving it, or meeting another’s eyes.

6. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001): Needle in the Hay
Life has become too much for Luke Wilson’s washed-out Richie Tenenbaum. This
former child prodigy has been in love with his adoptive sister (Gwyneth Paltrow) during all of
the formative years of his life. His infatuation affected him so profoundly that it ended his
tennis career and put him into his current state of aimless wandering. After hiring a private
investigator, he and her ex-husband (played by Bill Murray) now know of all the times she has
been readily unfaithful, especially with family friend and popular author/drug-addict Eli Cash
(Owen Wilson). Already estranged from his lying father, the last tenuous hope Richie had is
gone.
The time period of The Royal Tenenbaums is contemporaneous with the then-
current year of 2001, at least according to the tombstone. But this is another case where many
songs from a previous era color the soundscape. This is similar to the approach that Lynch took
in establishing the world of Blue Velvet with sweeping and romantic early rock and roll pieces.
But as a younger, Generation X director, Wes Anderson chooses pieces from the late 60s and
70s all the way up to the mid-90s with “Needle In The Hay” from 1995. Thus, there is nothing
definitively dating the filmas taking place during 2001, but it nonetheless exists in a version of
2001 in a heightened reality with the quality of timelessness. Anderson has made a name for
himself in this way, and his mostly tidy, straight ahead cinematography lends itself to a world
neatly cut to music.
The big impact of this scene notably comes when the music cuts out. The music puts us
into the distant perspective of Richie. With Richie facing inward, the music replaces the scenes’

7. literal sounds with the exception of a few key punctuating actions like knocking, slamming
doors, and taking out razors. Then the music cuts out and briefly shows us the perspective of
Dudley as he discovers Richie. We do not hear his scream, because Elliot Smith’s “Needle in the
Hay” comes in again in place of the sounds of reality. The next big impact arrives when the
music cuts out once more, this time used for dark comedy. The driving, constant rhythm in 4/4
time of “Needle in the Hay” easily gels with an everyday scene like shaving. There is a build as
the familiar guitar is doubled, increasing the already high tempo of strumming, and in that way
it vectorizes towards the end of a phrase. Then the impact comes with its absence. Now from
the perspective of Dudley, we are allowed to feel the impact of the images only. Afterwards in
dialogue that follows, naturalistic ambient noise returns. In this way, the non-diegetic music of
the scene freely drops out and replaces or exists alongside the literal sounds of the scene.
Assuming “Needle in the Hay” is in A minor, it would appear to be leading to the
commonly used structure of i V III VII, the chords of A minor, F major, C major and finally G
major. This is a common progression in the simplest minor key that has no sharps or flats. But
this piece never resolves that way until just before Dudley opens the door. An E major chord,
(V) takes in the place of the typical G major (VII). The chord of E major is unexpected in the key
of A minor as it contains a G# that normally has no business being in the key of A minor. After
the silence there is only a vamp of the tonic, A minor, so the song has resolved into the minor.
Thus the only emotional high has come with the moment of the G major chord. The atypical i V
III V structure of the song is something we are primed to hear as the structure befitting epic
themes, but the E major is an aural disappointment that leads us back to the beginning of the
cycles. Then, the G major chord, or the “leading tone” captures our attention because it

8. resolves. Structurally, the music theory behind this song is perfectly suited to underscore a
cycles of disappointment. The cycle of disappointment never resolves until it finally does, with a
suicide.