4 Non-Film Songs David Lynch Wrote for His Solo Albums

“I do picture them as they come out,” director David Lynch said of songwriting. Songs often came to the surrealist as images, as something more celluloid. “A lot of times it’s like the picture is there and my hand is writing as fast as possible because I see the talking,” continued Lynch in a 2024 interview. “I see the moving when ideas come.”

Charmed during his younger years by Phil Spector’s wall of sound and the full-bodied pop of Roy Orbison by the ’50s, Lynch later composed the sonorous soundtrack for his 1978 film debut, Eraserhead. From there, the director’s musical ear in film spanned work with longtime collaborator Angelo Badalamenti and his “Twin Peaks Theme” song, along with the Julee Cruise-crooned “Into the Night,” “The Nightingale” and “Falling,” written by Lynch for his Twin Peaks television series.

Once “Wicked Game” penetrated Lynch’s dark romantic comedy Wild at Heart in 1990, Chris Isaak became a household name. Lynch also directed the film-noir music video for the hit, originally featured on Isaak’s 1989 album Heart Shaped World. Lynch went on to direct more noirish music videos for Nine Inch Nails, Moby, Rammstein, and Donovan.

Lynch even oversaw the more instrumental soundtracks of The Elephant Man, and his ill-fated sci-fi drama Dune featuring Toto and Brian Eno. His ongoing work with Badalamenti set the erogenous and near-neurotic tone around Blue Velvet, including the use of Orbison’s 1963 hit “In Dreams,” and on through their work around the music for Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me in 2017, which also featured four more songs written by Lynch.

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A collection of collaborative albums from Lynch crossed Lux Vivens with Jocelyn Montgomery in 1998, The Air Is on Fire with producer and composer Dean Hurley, who also worked on Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017, and another with Polish composer Marek Zebrowski. Predominantly writing songs for vocalists, Lynch’s voice can be heard on DJ Flying Lotus’ palpitating “Fire Is Coming” in 2019.

Badalamenti and Lynch also continued their musical collaborations on the peripheral of films with the spoken-word Thought Gang in 2018, a revisitation of songs they first recorded during the early ’90s. Lynch’s three albums with vocalist Chrystabell, included his final, Cellophane Memories in 2024.

Within his heterogeneous career, Lynch also co-wrote songs for and with artists including Cruise, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Jimmy Scott, Koko Taylor, Danger Mouse, and more.

He also released three solo albums from his 2001 debut BlueBOB, Crazy Clown Time in 2011, The Big Time in 2013, and in the years between through his final work in 2024, released several months before his death at 78 on January 15, 2025. Here’s a look behind each album and some of the songs Lynch wrote.

[RELATED: 3 Songs You Didn’t Know David Lynch Co-Wrote for Other Artists]

“City of Dreams” (2001)

Written by David Lynch; composed by John Neff

Lynch’s 2001 debut BlueBOB, a collaboration with engineer, producer, and composer John Neff, rides on a more no-wave and avant-garde cadence. The closing “City of Dreams” dives into an industrial territory with lyrics flickering around a recurring theme for Lynch, the harsher realities of a romanticized Hollywood.

Here where you are standing
The dinosaurs did a dance
The Indians told a story
Now it has come to pass

The Indians had a legend
The Spaniards lived for gold
The white man came and killed them
But they haven′t really gone

We live in the city of dreams
We drive on the highway of fire
Should we awake
And find it gone
Remember this, our favorite town

From Germany and Europe
And Southern U.S.A
They made this little town here
That we live in to this day

The children of the white man
Saw Indians on TV
And heard about the legend
How their city was a dream

“Crazy Clown Time” (2011)

Written by David Lynch and Dean Hurley

A decade passed since Lynch released his second solo album, Crazy Clown Time in 2011. Bending around electro-pop and produced by Lynch, the album, which went to No. 3 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart, features a curated list of guest vocalists, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O on the opening “Pinky’s Dream.” A bonus track, “I’m Waiting Here” uncovers another tripped-out tale, co-written by Swedish pop artist Lykke Li.

The title track depicts a hallucinogenic scene between two women in a raging fight. Shirts are ripped, and beer is thrown, and spitting later ensues. Somewhere, a guy named Buddy screamed so loud his spit, while they all ran around the backyard.

Molly had her rip shirt
Molly had her rip shirt
Suzy, she ripped her shirt off completely
Oh, Molly had her rip shirt
Oh, Molly had her rip shirt
Suzy, she ripped her shirt off completely
Then he poured the beer
Then he poured the beer all over Sally
Then he poured beer
Then he poured the beer all over Sally
Then he poured beer
Then he poured beer
Then he poured the beer all over Sally

Buddy screamed so loud, he spit
Buddy screamed so loud, he spit
We all ran around the back yard
We all ran around
We all ran around the back yard
It was crazy clown time

“Star Dream Girl” (2013)

Written by David Lynch and Dean Hurley

For his third and final solo album, Lynch continued working with Hurley on The Big Dream. Featuring a cover of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ track “The Ballad of Hollis Brown,” the remaining tracks were co-written by Lynch and Hurley, including “Star Dream Girl.”

Filled around chunkier Isaak-like “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing” guitars, “Star Dream Girl” is the epitome of a movie-star dream girl—Every night they come to dream of her.

Crank up that radio, let me tell y’all a story
They’re coming from all around, flying down that wide highway
Coming like crowds, like never before
Her being the one they can’t wait to see

Every night they come to dream of her
Every night they come to dream of her
Star dream girl, star dream girl

Crank up that radio
Every night they come, flying down that wide highway
They’re coming from all around
Coming like crowds, like never before
Her being the one they can’t wait to see

“Sublime Eternal Love” (2024)

Written by David Lynch and Chrysta Bell Zucht (Chrystabell)

In 2011, Lynch released his first collaborative album with ambient, synth-pop singer Chrystabell with This Train, followed in 2016 by their second union, Somewhere in the Nowhere. By 2024, Lynch united with the singer one more time for his final opus, Cellophane Memories, a transient movement of songs, co-written by Chrystabell. The album includes synth contributions from Badalementi on the tracks “She Knew” and “So Much Love” and glides through sprawling songs, including its final coda, the slowly throbbing “Sublime Eternal Love,” a story on the healing power of music—Calling out he cried / Cried for understanding … And the noise turned to music—and accompanied by a strobing video directed by Lynch.

“It was inspired by experimenting and it all came out of experimenting,” said Lynch of his final album. “In the beginning, we didn’t know whether it was absolute rubbish or something good. And the more we listened to it, we said, ‘Wait a minute, this is really beautiful.’”

When he saw it
Coming round and shining
He fell down crying
And trembling
Calling out he cried
Cried for understanding
Voices came
And the noise turned to music
And the notes had feeling
A feeling of love
A sublime love
Eternal love sublime eternal love

Main Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images