It is romantic, it is terrifying, it is beautiful, it is unnervingly sexual. “The music of Twin Peaks is everything that we aspire to as musicians and is everything that we want to listen to as music fans. The intro song, which brought us there every time we tuned in, the mysterious eeriness of the jazz song Audrey dances to, Laura Palmer’s theme and beyond, all created this feeling like we were tuning into a television show equivalent to tuning into a radio show at “the end of the radio dial.”Īs my morning journey down the Twin Peaks soundtrack rabbit hole deepened, I landed on this quote from Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, which so perfectly seems to sum up what I’ve been trying to say all along.
![tex murphy under a killing moon soundtrack tex murphy under a killing moon soundtrack](https://www.adventuregames.hu/games/59b186a7483e9/66f3ef28beb8200b86486302aed3a9d7_600.jpg)
I’m sure part of it is pure old nostalgia, which the Greeks define as “putting salt on an old wound,” but there’s something more - something about how the theme manages to create an entire world that, like Tex Murphy’s world as a Private Eye, we all want to be a part of.Įven more memorable than the actual plot of Twin Peaks is that very world that David Lynch created for us each time we tuned in - the coffee, the pie, the dictaphone recordings to Diane. That got me thinking about deeper about the Twin Peaks soundtrack and why it seems to have had such a profound effect on so many people, while being completely lost on others (my brother hates it). After listening to that recording, and by now the water is way past boiling, I was sure I’d found what I’d set out in search of. One might even consider Art Farmer and Benny Golson doing “I Remember Clifford”.īut maybe best of all is Angelo Badalamenti’s “Dance Of The Dream Man” from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, which Xiu Xiu reminded me of yesterday. More like Miles’ soundtrack to the French crime drama Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) or his take on “‘Round Midnight” ( Thelonious’ version is more “New York streets jazz”, a close relative to “P.I. It reminds me of fantasizing about life as a Private Investigator, about the rock-bottom, trench coat wearing downtown detectives who sit alone in diners late at night fretting over their cases.
![tex murphy under a killing moon soundtrack tex murphy under a killing moon soundtrack](https://s.ecrater.com/stores/1112/5241dbaa30488_1112b.jpg)
These days when I look at Edward Hopper’s 1942 masterpiece “Nighthawk”, it reminds me of Tex’s world. Jazz would always be playing from around some corner. I wanted the raspy voiced women, who reminded me of Jessica Rabbit, to show up to my office as I parsed through the newspaper (something I had never read) and spouted off “wise guy” cracks about their feeble cases, which, of course, I would pursue out of my sheer passion for justice. I wanted the office with the venetian blinds covering the window on the door, which, of course, would have the stencilled lettering with my name followed by “P.I.”. Similarly, I adored the Joker’s gang of henchmen (are there even such a thing as henchmen anymore?) in the original Batman film, which is, to this day, the only good “comic book film” I have ever seen.Īfter playing Under a Killing Moon, I decided I wanted that life for myself. I remember how it informed my mental image of the downtown crime infested world that I so badly wanted to be a part of. I distinctly remember the feeling that game gave me when I entered its world, much like the best film noir. At the time I was fairly young and didn’t exactly play the game the way it was supposed to be played, instead I just mooched around playing the video game private eye equivalent of house. For me, that game and its protagonist Tex Murphy were life changers. This also partly explains the stress and pressure that led to his reputation for being such an incredible asshole.Īnyone who’s ever played the video game Under a Killing Moon probably has some idea what I’m talking about when I say “P.I. In a sense, it’s somewhat of a metaphor for Miles’ entire career: like every time the jazz scene would catch up to Miles, he’d be around the next corner (the album was one of his worst selling at the time, but has since been called one of his best and most influential). Maybe that’s what Miles was thinking when he recorded the album On The Corner, that no one would be able to catch this endlessly elusive player, whose music always comes from around the corner. Like, no matter how many corners you turned in search of the source, of Miles, the sound would still be coming from around the corner.
![tex murphy under a killing moon soundtrack tex murphy under a killing moon soundtrack](http://alcatraztms.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/3/7/21371720/7250110_orig.jpg)
So my search deepened.Īfter putting some thought into it, I decided what I really wanted was Miles - from the era where it sounds like his trumpet is being played from around some downtown street corner. It certainly falls into the category of “Detective Music” from those gumshoe shows and crime noir films of yore, perhaps even defines it. Except, the Peter Gunn theme is not at all what I was going for. What I found were many different versions of the classic crime show theme “Peter Gunn”. This morning as I waited for the kettle to boil, I searched the web for “P.I.