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On this episode of Music In Time, host Evan McCormick pays tribute to the late David Lynch (1946-2025), highlighting the role of music in his filmmaking and cinematic vision. Playing songs from iconic Lynch’s soundtracks through the years, McCormick explores how song & sound helped create unsettling alternate realities that underlie romantic visions of the American dream. From the dangerous allure of romance coded in Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” (Blue Velvet, 1986), to the tides of good and evil wrestling for the heart of everytown, USA in Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks instrumentals and the in-your-face gothic of David Bowie and Smashing Pumpkins pulsing in the Hollywood underworld of Lost Highway (1997) – it’s a damn fine playlist. 

Agent Dale Cooper said “every day, once a day, give yourself a present.” Heed his word and tune in to Music In Time.

Playlist 
1. Prophecy Theme - Toto, Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois (Dune, 1984)
2. In Dreams - Roy Orbison (Blue Velvet, 1986)
3. Wicked Game - Chris Isaak (Wild At Heart, 1990)
4. Love Theme From Twin Peaks - Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks S1, 1990)
5. Sycamore Trees - Jimmy Scott (Twin Peaks S2, 1991)
6. Questions In A World Of Blue - Julee Cruse - (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, 1992)
7. I'm Deranged - David Bowie (Lost Highway, 1997)
8. Eye – Smashing Pumpkins (Lost Highway, 1997)
9. Llorando - Rebekah Del Rio (Mullholland Drive, 2001)
10. Ghost of Love - David Lynch (Inland Empire, 2006)
11. Windswept (Reprise) - Johnny Jewell (Twin Peaks: The Return, 2017)

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Music does not just exist. It exists in specific times and places and in the sonic world of each individual listener who engages with it. That’s the basic idea behind "Music in Time," which explores the social and political context in which songs and albums emerge, are listened to, and reflected on over the years. Each broadcast focuses on a single album, detailing the social and political circumstances surrounding its release and moments in time that made certain music resonate anew. How is music shaped by these historical moments, and, in turn, how does it shape the histories that we remember?

By day, Evan McCormick is a historian at Columbia University, where he is part of the Obama Presidency Oral History project, interviewing a range of people — from cabinet members to ordinary folks — about their memories of the Obama years. By night, McCormick is a music lover and singer-songwriter, recording under the stage name Egan Caufield. For most of his life these two worlds remained separate, but after relocating to Catskill, in 2020, he chose to bring history and music together over the airwaves, and "Music in Time" was born.