Ghost of Love

Out of his newfound digital freedom after the critical success of Mulholland Drive, David Lynch planted the early seeds of INLAND EMPIRE, evolving and fissuring from an internet-bound experiment itself, into something much more expansive. The film collated a variety of ideas and working methods that the recent web paradigm had nurtured in Lynch, one of which was an increased frequency of his own solo music productions.

In the first weeks of 2005, Lynch would record a blues instrumental and instead of getting someone else to sing on the song, he would sing, via a formant and pitch-altering piece of equipment known as the Boss VT-1. With “Ghost of Love,” Lynch was experimenting with bringing “any character he needed” into his own musical compositions. In true Lynch fashion, it’s difficult to know which inspired which: did “Ghost of Love” birth a scene in INLAND EMPIRE, or did the film’s ideas birth the song? Just as “In Heaven” had served to encapsulate Eraserhead, “Ghost of Love” managed to encapsulate INLAND EMPIRE allowing its listener to close their eyes and immediately channel the film’s images and mood onto the screen of the mind.