Hello, people! This edition of No Skips is hopefully not as scuffed as my vinyl copy of Julee Cruise’s debut album “Floating Into the Night,” but that’s okay. In No Skips, I go over albums that are consistent front to back, and the inspiration this week came from deciding what album to review at 3 a.m. This masterpiece from 1989 is perfect for nocturnal college students like me, featuring the perfect balance of the surreal and the serene, especially since the late David Lynch played a major role in the album’s synthesis by writing all the songs.
In fact, unfortunately, all three key artists who worked on this record—Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti and Cruise herself—have passed away since 2022. The former faced health complications from the Los Angeles wildfires, while Badalamenti, who is behind the music of “Twin Peaks” and even “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” reached 85 years of age before his death. However, the 65-year-old Cruise died by suicide, casting an extra layer of gloom on this already haunting record.
On the first track, “Floating,” Cruise stays fairly distant from the microphone, letting her harmonies wash over the listener’s ears, apart from one moment where she whispers, enticing someone to come over to her house. Functioning as both an airy pop ballad and a brooding jazz standard from hell, the romantic interest in this song makes the speaker feel otherworldly, with one of the less abstract lyrics being, “Ever since I held your face / I soar through space.” It’s weird to not attribute these statements to Cruise since she’s singing, but as we’ll see, this album’s lyrical idiosyncrasies are very much Lynch-coded.
Although I have yet to experience “Twin Peaks,” I’m aware the album’s first single and its second track, “Falling,” helped characterize the show’s mysticism, as the instrumental was the theme song. I cannot imagine this song feeling complete without Cruise’s low-key delivery in the verses, matching the eclectic electric guitar and her powerful vocals during the chorus.
“I Remember,” though less notable, is quite peaceful until a transition near the two-minute mark where the wind starts to blow, emphasized by the line “I never felt a wind / So happy, so warm / That sent seven little red birds up my spine.” With the drums and cymbals also increasing in tempo, I enjoy Badalamenti’s willingness to throw a wrench in an otherwise normal composition because the middle portion turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the track.
“Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart” is a tad more upbeat than the introductory three-track run, with a banging backing band and a rhythmic chorus. Guitars, saxophones and Cruise’s immaculate vocals keep the nearly-six-minute track engaging enough for future listens. The outro elaborates on some motifs brought up in the previous song, including birds, fire and wind, though much of the lyrical material is the song’s title.
“Mysteries of Love” is a pleasant tune that — I hate to say this — could’ve made it onto “Donda” by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) if he recruited less rap-oriented artists onto the production crew. If anything, this song best represents the idea of “floating into the night” with its lack of percussion and many instrumental sections.
“Into the Night” is primarily defined by another genius choice by Badalamenti to crescendo the composition with brass and drums, giving no prior warning to the listener. The simplicity is intoxicating, yet Cruise, who mainly sings “so dark” gives just enough substance to justify an almost five-minute runtime.
Lynch continues to latch onto darkness in “I Float Alone,” which coincidentally or not, bolsters Cruise’s most downtrodden vocals. Claiming “Sad dreams blow through dark trees / Love’s gone wrong / Clouds of sadness raining all night long / Love’s gone / The end of our song,” an equally depressing saxophone that sounds like it’s on its last breath concludes the seventh song.
The record could’ve ended there but the album rounds out at 10 songs, and at this point, they get a bit repetitive. There’s merit in each track being as good as the last, but when the quality is consistent because the songs sound the same, I can only commend them so much. Regardless, I can still justify “Floating Into the Night” fitting into this column with no exceptions.
“The Nightingale” is the album’s loudest song in terms of energy, not necessarily in volume. Cruise confidently performs in the background while more metaphorical lyrics are recited by her in another take such as “Our hearts will fly / With the nightingale.” Death pervades “The Swan,” a song evidently made in the late-1980s, where the speaker draws parallels between their lover and a dying swan, believing them to have a “swan smile,” whatever that means.
“The World Spins,” the six-and-a-half-minute outro, is sonically similar to everything before it, though it’s an incredible standalone track. The longer verses feature progression like a scale in Cruise’s voice, reaching the highest note in the chorus. A bell-like instrument gives a nursery rhyme quality, and this formula essentially repeats until the song floats into the night. This is probably a better finale than “I Float Alone” would’ve been, but if it was anywhere else in the track list, I would’ve questioned its inclusion.
The creation of the album is also fascinating, as it’s inexplicably linked with “Twin Peaks” and other David Lynch productions, but I think “Floating Into the Night” was a historic moment for music and experimental art at large. All three people mentioned in this review were prolific in their own right, but the blending of their talents that culminated in this album makes this quite a unique listen and deep dive. Rest in peace to Cruise, Badalamenti and Lynch.