David Lynch Dead At 78

The all-time great American filmmaker and occasional musician David Lynch, a man who casts a vast shadow over decades of left-of-center music, has passed away. Lynch’s family announced his death on social media today and asked for privacy. No cause of death has been reported, though Lynch said last year that he’d been diagnosed with emphysema and that he could no longer leave the house to direct. Lynch was 78.

David Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana, and his family moved all over the country when he was a kid. Lynch’s father worked as a research scientist for the USDA, which took him to a number of different cities. Famously, Lynch was an Eagle Scout. He studied art at the School Of The Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston, where future J. Geils band leader Peter Wolf was his roommate. Lynch dropped out quickly and later moved to Philadelphia to study at the Pennsylvania Academy Of The Fine Arts.

While he was a student, Lynch became a father; his daughter Jennifer later became a filmmaker herself. He found work making print engravings, and he started to make surreal, disturbing short films. They caught the attention of the American Film Institute, and Lynch went to California to study at their Conservatory. Soon after, he started work on Eraserhead, his 1978 feature debut, a strange and nightmarish black-and-white vision of parenthood and drudgery. Much of the film’s bizarre power comes from its soundtrack, a persistent thrum of industrial hums, clanks, and drones that was largely composed by Lynch himself.

Eraserhead gradually became a word-of-mouth midnight-movie cult sensation, and its soundtrack was hugely influential on a great deal of experimental music. Mel Brooks saw Eraserhead and loved it, and he was instrumental in getting Lynch his next gig, directing the deeply moving black-and-white biopic The Elephant Man, which earned Lynch’s first Oscar nomination for Best Director. (He was nominated three times and never won.) From there, Lynch directed the big-budget 1984 Dune adaptation, a notorious flop that featured a performance from Sting and a soundtrack from Toto. Dune did not represent Lynch’s vision, and he never really worried about making mainstream fare again.

Dune could’ve ended Lynch’s career or sent it down a studio-hack path. Instead, Lynch’s next film was Blue Velvet, a disturbing masterpiece that made unforgettable use of dreamy mid-century pop music. Blue Velvet was Lynch’s first collaboration with the late Italian composer Angelo Badalamenti, whose melodramatic but haunted style proved a perfect match. Lynch often worked on his soundtracks in close collaboration with Badalamenti.

Lynch went on to direct major works like Wild At Heart, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. He also co-created Twin Peaks, the epochal TV show that debuted on ABC in 1990. Lynch and Badalamenti co-wrote the iconic Twin Peaks theme music, and they adapted it into “Falling,” a big hit for the singer Julee Cruise. Together, Lynch and Badalamenti co-produced two gorgeous Cruise albums, 1989’s Floating Into The Night and 1993’s The Voice Of Love. Moby’s career essentially started when he sampled the Twin Peaks theme on his rave single “Go,” and Lynch later directed a video for Moby.

Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” became a huge international hit after Lynch used it in Wild At Heart, and Lynch directed one of the song’s music videos, though his isn’t the famous one. Isaak also played a big role in Lynch’s unnerving Twin Peaks spinoff film Fire Walk With Me. He also directed a teaser video for Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous and videos for artists like Nine Inch Nails and Interpol. In 2001, Lynch collaborated with sound designer John Neff on Lynch’s debut album BlueBOB, a kind of industrial-blues-rock thing.

David Lynch continued to release music in his later years, often on the indie label Sacred Bones. His records included appearances from artists like Karen O and Lykke Li, and he guested on Flying Lotus’ 2019 track “Fire Is Coming.” In 2017, Lynch’s final directorial project was Twin Peaks: The Return, a revival of his old TV series that became a powerful avant-garde statement of its own. The show included performances from artists like Nine Inch Nails, Eddie Vedder, the Chromatics, Sharon Van Etten, and Julee Cruise. Just last year, Lynch released the album Cellophane Memories, a collaboration with the singer Chyrstabell.

David Lynch’s music has been sampled by people like Moby, the KLF, Modest Mouse, Ministry, Fatboy Slim, and Mr. Bungle. As a director, he cast musicians like David Bowie. In terms of sheer aesthetic influence, an artist like Lana Del Rey could not exist without Lynch. He was a towering figure in the film world, but music isn’t far behind. Much of the music on this website would be very different if Lynch wasn’t around. Below, check out some of Lynch’s most indelible musical moments.