Cruise studied French horn at Drake University and performed as a singer and actress in New York, where she also worked as a talent scout for Angelo Badalamenti. In 1985, Badalamenti was composing the score for David Lynch's Blue Velvet, as well as serving as the vocal coach for the film's star, Isabella Rossellini. A key scene in Blue Velvet was intended to feature Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil, but when the rights to the song proved prohibitively expensive, it was suggested that Badalamenti compose a pop song in the same style, with lyrics written by Lynch. Because the song required a vocalist with a haunting, ethereal voice, Badalamenti recommended Julee Cruise, who had sung "like an angel" in a New York theater workshop that Badalamenti had produced. The result of their initial collaboration was "Mysteries of Love", which figures prominently in Blue Velvet's closing scenes.
Positive reaction to "Mysteries of Love" led Badalamenti and Lynch to write and produce additional songs for Cruise, most of which were featured in her debut album, Floating Into the Night. The album was released on 12 September 1989 by Warner Bros. Records, and charted on Billboard the following year. A moody, tightly structured collection of pop songs with lush, idiosyncratic orchestrations and intentionally retro lyrics, Floating Into the Night became a favorite of such musicians as Tim Booth, lead singer of the band James, and techno artist Moby, who would go on to collaborate with Cruise on the unreleased track "Drown Disco". It also provided musical material for two of Lynch's other projects. The first was Industrial Symphony No. 1, a dark, intentionally obscure performance piece in which Cruise performed while "floating" from a harness dozens of feet above a stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The second, more significant project was the soundtrack to Lynch's Twin Peaks, for which Badalamenti composed the original score. The song "Falling", which became the orchestral theme for the television series, caused a minor sensation, winning a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental, while the Twin Peaks soundtrack, featuring Cruise on the songs "Into the Night" and "The Nightingale" as well as on the vocal version of "Falling", eventually became the best-selling television soundtrack of all time. Cruise made a number of appearances on Twin Peaks as a girl singer at a local bar, and was prominently featured in the show's landmark pilot episode, as well as in 1992's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
The campy but unsettling "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", the second single from Floating Into the Night, was released in 1990. Cruise also made a controversial appearance on Saturday Night Live on 12 May 1990, when scheduled performer Sinéad O'Connor refused to appear on the same show as guest host Andrew Dice Clay. The following year, Cruise recorded a Lynch- and Badalamenti-produced cover of the Elvis Presley song "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears" for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders's Until the End of the World. Afterwards, Cruise maintained a relatively low profile until her second album, The Voice of Love, was released in 1993. To many listeners and reviewers, this album suffered in comparison to its predecessor, possibly due to the numerous other projects competing for Lynch and Badalamenti's attention. Many of the tracks were little more than instrumentals from Wild at Heart or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me with added vocals. However, several songs, notably "Questions in a World of Blue", are ranked by fans among Cruise's best.
Cruise's early collaborations with Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch were closely related to Lynch's film work, and their lyrics often reflect this. For example, "Into the Night" begins with the whispered words "Now it's dark", a line which was repeatedly spoken by Frank Booth, Dennis Hopper's character, in Blue Velvet. Lynch also photographed Cruise for the liner notes of Floating Into the Night and The Voice of Love, and created the sculptures featured on the covers of both albums.
The following decade found Cruise lending her vocals to works by a more miscellaneous list of collaborators, mostly in techno and dance music. She provided vocals and lyrics to several of the songs on Wide Angle, the debut album by Welsh electronic music group Hybrid, notably the epic techno track "If I Survive". She also appeared on two albums by dance artist Khan. The lyrics for many of these songs, such as "Body Dump", reflect Cruise's own interest in true crime. She appears on a number of tracks on the 2003 album "Dreams Top Rock" by German post-rock act Pluramon.
Cruise also acted and sang in the Off Broadway cast of Return to the Forbidden Planet, a spoof of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and toured with the B-52s in 1992 and 1993.
Cruise's long-delayed third album, The Art of Being a Girl, was released in 2002. This was the first of her albums for which Badalamenti and Lynch did not produce or write any of the music, with music and lyrics for each of the songs being written by Cruise herself (with the exception of an updated version of her classic single "Falling") and guest produced by Rick Strom and Mocean Worker. The following year, Cruise's song "The World Spins" was featured in an extended ballet sequence in Robert Altman's The Company.
Cruise passed away on June 9, 2022 at age 65.
Into the Night
Julee Cruise Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Into the night
I cry out
I cry out your name.
Into the night
I search out
I swearch out your love.
Where are you?
Come back in my heart
So dark
So dark.
Into the night
Shadows fall
Shadows fall so blue.
I cry out
I cry out for you.
Night so dark
Where are you?
Come back in my heart
So dark
So dark
So dark.
The lyrics of Julee Cruise’s song “Into the Night” suggest a deep yearning for a lost love. The repetition of the phrase “Into the night” creates a mood of desperation and loss as the singer cries out for their love. The singer is lost in the darkness, searching for their lost love, calling out their name hoping that they will return. The imagery of the shadows falling so blue adds to the melancholic atmosphere and suggests that the singer is alone and heartbroken. The repeated line, “Night so dark, where are you?” feels like an unanswered question, a plea to the universe for answers to why their love has gone away.
The chorus repeats the phrase “So dark, so dark” as if to emphasize the depth of despair that the singer is feeling. They are lost and without their love, unable to find any light in the darkness. The repetition of the phrase “Come back in my heart” suggests that the singer is willing to forgive and forget whatever caused their love to leave them in the first place, they just want their love back in their life. The use of the night as a metaphor for the singer's emotions creates a sense of longing and despair, as if they are unable to escape the darkness of their own feelings.
Line by Line Meaning
Now it's dark.
The current state is darkness.
Into the night
Directing oneself towards the darkness and uncertainty of the night.
I cry out
Expressing deep emotional pain and sorrow.
I cry out your name.
Seeking comfort and solace in the embrace of another person.
Into the night
Moving deeper into the unknown and uncertain future with daunting prospects.
I search out
Seeking to find a solution and answers to a multitude of problems.
I swearch out your love.
Desiring and yearning for the warmth and affection of another person.
Night so dark
The darkness of the night is overwhelming and suffocating.
Where are you?
Feeling isolated and abandoned, searching for a connection or a way out.
Come back in my heart
Desperately pleading for someone to fill the void in their life and become an anchor of hope.
So dark
The darkness of the situation is all-consuming and feels inescapable.
Into the night
Moving deeper into the unknown and uncertain future with daunting prospects.
Shadows fall
The darkness is becoming more pronounced and visceral, casting a shadow over everything.
Shadows fall so blue.
The sadness and pain of the darkness is weighing heavily, cloaking everything in a melancholic shade.
I cry out for you.
Echoing the same longing and yearning for another person to provide comfort and love.
Night so dark
The darkness of the night is overwhelming and suffocating.
Where are you?
Feeling isolated and abandoned, searching for a connection or a way out.
Come back in my heart
Desperately pleading for someone to fill the void in their life and become an anchor of hope.
So dark
The darkness of the situation is all-consuming and feels inescapable.
So dark
The darkness of the situation is all-consuming and feels inescapable.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: ANGELO BADALAMENTI, DAVID K. LYNCH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Jessica Y-H
5 I rose up to open to my beloved;
and my hands dropped with myrrh,
and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh,
upon the handles of the lock.
6 I opened to my beloved;
but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone:
my soul failed when he spake:
I sought him, but I could not find him;
I called him, but he gave me no answer.
7 The watchmen that went about the city found me,
they smote me, they wounded me;
the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
8 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him,
that I am sick of love.
Joy
Now it's dark.
Into the night
I cry out
I cry out your name.
Into the night
I search out
I search out your love.
Night so dark
Where are you?
Come back in my heart
So dark
Into the night
Shadows fall
Shadows fall so blue.
I cry out
I cry out for you.
Night so dark
Where are you?
Come back in my heart
So dark
_______________________________________
Leeuwtje007
Rest in peace Julee. You had the voice of an angel , now you can sing from above us.
Elshad Aliyev Aliyev
🖤❤️🖤
Grande Artiste
How old was she? When did she pass? From what? Thanks.
H E X U S
June 9th this year. Suicide 😔
B PAGE
@H E X U S She passed away at the age of 65 on the 9/6/2022, and she was born in Creston, Iowa on the 1/12/1956 and would`ve been her birthday today.
Joshua King
Her voice is haunting and I've always associated her music with the cloudy PNW. RIP you Angel.
Ash Lee
Another one of those songs that are a favourite but you can’t listen to too often without becoming depressed and feeling so alone. Julee was so talented, so sad. Sending my condolences
Chuck Cartwright
Somewhere out there, Julee and Angelo are once again collaborating on new ethereal songs. Live on forever in peace to both.
xoen6
Angelo died too???
Chuck Cartwright
Yes, on December 11, 2022. He was 85. Sorry.