The seduc­tive, sub­ver­sive sound of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet

It’s no acci­dent that the body part found by Jef­frey Beau­mont (Kyle MacLach­lan) at the start of David Lynch’s Blue Vel­vet is that of a sev­ered ear. For as much as that clas­sic, deeply trou­ble­some film, which turns 30 this month, is remem­bered for its star­tling, dis­turb­ing images, what we hear is equal­ly unset­tling – and what bet­ter object to prompt an audi­ence to pay atten­tion to sound than the organ through with which we listen?

It’s also no acci­dent that the sev­ered ear is cov­ered in ants upon its dis­cov­ery. Bugs and insects are used recur­rent­ly as sym­bols for the film’s over­ar­ch­ing theme of the hid­den, repug­nant part of real­i­ty hid­ing beneath a whole­some veneer – from the famous zoom in on a swarm of creepy crawlies in the film’s open­ing scene, to Jeffrey’s choice to dis­guise him­self as an exter­mi­na­tor in order to gain access to night­club singer Dorothy’s (Isabel­la Rosselli­ni) apart­ment and inves­ti­gate the crime that led to the dis­em­bod­i­ment of the ear.

The fact that insects have infil­trat­ed this sym­bol­ic ear, there­fore, alerts us to the idea that the music and songs that make up the sound­track may not be as inno­cent as they intu­itive­ly seem. Take, for instance, the title track, croon­er Bob­by Vinton’s ​‘Blue Vel­vet’. On the sur­face it appears a sweet love song, and is used in the film’s open­ing mon­tage to help paint a pic­ture of a cosy, sub­ur­ban ide­al. A cou­ple of ren­di­tions from Dorothy in her night­club set empha­sise the sense of sad long­ing in the song, but it remains a naïve-sound­ing ode to a lost lover.

It’s only when Den­nis Hopper’s Frank, the dis­turbed, psy­chot­ic vil­lain of the piece who it ulti­mate­ly turns out is respon­si­ble for the sev­ered ear, is also spot­ted by Jef­frey in the night­club that the song is cor­rupt­ed. Frank’s first appear­ance, where he sex­u­al­ly assaults Dorothy while Jef­frey looks on from a clos­et, estab­lish­es him as a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of evil that cor­rupts Jeffrey’s inno­cent sense of good­ness in the world; so to see him lis­ten­ing cap­ti­vat­ed to Dorothy sing, while clutch­ing the same fetishised cloth off blue vel­vet that he also has with him in that pre­vi­ous scene, shifts the asso­ci­a­tions of the song from that of sweet roman­tic long­ing to per­vert­ed sex­u­al desire.

‘Blue Vel­vet’ isn’t the only song Frank per­verts. In one scene he beats up Jef­frey for attempt­ing to defend Dorothy from his vio­lence while they go on a joy ride, let­ting out a threat­en­ing, exple­tive-rid­den tirade that warps the lyrics of the pop song ​‘Love Let­ters’: ​“I’ll send you a love let­ter, straight from my heart, fuck­er. You know what a love let­ter is? It’s a bul­let from a fuck­ing gun, fuck­er.” Once again, Frank has replaced the gen­tle emo­tions of love in the song with aggres­sive vio­lence, and the asso­ci­a­tion is rein­forced when singer Ket­ty Lester’s ver­sion of the song lat­er accom­pa­nies a bru­tal crime scene.

The most har­row­ing musi­cal ref­er­ence, how­ev­er, occurs moments lat­er. One of Frank’s accom­pa­ny­ing cronies has upon his request put Roy Orbison’s ​‘In Dreams’ on in the car, and Frank, star­ing intent­ly into Jeffrey’s eyes, begins to men­ac­ing­ly enun­ci­ate all of the lyrics in a low, hor­ri­ble whis­per: ​“In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams I talk to you. In dreams you’re mine, all the time, for ever in dreams.”

This time Frank sub­verts anoth­er old-fash­ioned love song into a men­ac­ing threat, cast­ing him­self as the ​“can­dy-coloured clown they call the sand­man,” that will haunt Jeffrey’s dreams. And indeed he seems to do just that, as scat­tered through­out the film on on the occa­sions that Jef­frey sleeps are night­mar­ish images and sounds of Frank. It’s only when Jef­frey shoots Frank dead in a cli­mac­tic con­fronta­tion between the two that he is able to both sleep free from the evil sand­man and redis­cov­er inno­cent puri­ty in music. The film’s final scene, of Jef­frey nap­ping peace­ful­ly on his sub­ur­ban lawn hav­ing removed Frank’s evil from the world, begins by zoom­ing out from an extreme close-up of Jeffrey’s ear, echo­ing and revers­ing an ear­li­er shot of the cam­era zoom­ing in on the dis­em­bod­ied ear.

Clean and fresh-look­ing com­pared with that ant-chewed ear, and accom­pa­nied on the sound­track by the angel­ic synths of Julee Cruise’s ​‘Mys­ter­ies of Love’ which had ear­li­er been asso­ci­at­ed with inti­mate scenes between him and his whole­some girl­friend Sandy (Lau­ra Dern), the shot seems to con­firm that Jef­frey is once more capa­ble of hear­ing inno­cence uncor­rupt­ed by Frank’s influ­ence. But that sev­ered ear and all it rep­re­sents leaves a last­ing impres­sion on any­one who has seen Lynch’s mas­ter­piece, for whom it is impos­si­ble to hear the songs ​‘Blue Vel­vet’, ​‘Love Let­ters’ or ​‘In Dreams’ the same way ever again.