Hear ‘Twin Peaks’ Singer Julee Cruise’s Early Demo ‘Floating’

The original demo for Julee Cruise’s song “Floating” sounds radically different from the version that would appear on her 1989 debut, Floating Into the Night. The track, which will appear on the upcoming Julee Cruise release Three Demos, features the vocalist crooning over beds of fuzzy synth without any of the surf guitar or jazzy flourishes that became the LP’s lead track. Instead, it’s a dreamy showcase of Cruise’s voice and filmmaker David Lynch’s lyrics.

Three Demos comprises three recordings Cruise cut with Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti between recording the song “Mysteries of Love” for Blue Velvet and the album. The other tracks on the release include early versions of “The World Spins” and “Falling,” the latter of which would become the theme music to Twin Peaks. The release will come out as a 12-inch on August 17th.

The label Sacred Bones is also planning the first-ever vinyl release of Cruise’s second album, 1993’s The Voice of Love, which will come out the same day. That album also contains music by Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch. Some of the songs were included in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which features an appearance by Cruise, and “Up in Flames” was featured in Lynch’s musical play Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted.

“It was obviously a different sound,” Badalamenti said of Floating Into the Night in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone. “When it came out, radio stations said they had no slots for it. Is it pop? Not really. Is it R&B? Certainly not. What is it? Even the more avant-garde stations found it unusual, so it was difficult getting airplay. But when ‘Falling’ came out as the main title theme of Twin Peaks, that was a whole different story.”