Chris Cornell ‘s only acting credit is the Cameron Crowe film Singles. He appears onscreen with Bridget Fonda.
Bridget Fonda also appears onscreen with Bill Pullman in Singles.
Bill Pullman appears in the David Lynch film, Lost Highway, which features Elizabeth Fraser’s version of ‘Song to the Siren’
UPDATE: Still don’t believe in the dark power of the Siren’s Song?
In Lost Highway, Bill Pullman plays a musician falsely accused of murdering his wife, played by Patricia Arquette (who was cast as Jeff Buckley’s mother in an unproduced biopic). Though never really explained it’s implied that the Mystery Man, played by Robert Blake, is responsible for the murder.
In May 2002- same month the Jeff Buckley biography Everyone Here Wants You aired on British television- Robert Blake was accused of murdering his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakely, in back of a restaurant in Los Angeles.
Just months after David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr – a film about an actress (Naomi Watts†) who has her lover killed – had depicted a memorable scene about a looming horror in back of a Los Angeles restaurant.
Mulholland Dr was originally produced as a TV movie after Lynch made Lost Highway.
Blake was acquitted on account of there was no evidence to tie him to the crime, and the only testimony came from two stuntmen associated with Bakely’s former lover, the convicted murderer Christian Brando.
Brando shot and killed his sister’s lover at Marlon Brando’s residence on- wait for it- Mulholland Dr.
And “Bakely?”
The name Bakley belongs to the early history of Britain, its origins lie with the Anglo-Saxons. It is a product of their having lived in any of the places named Buckley, or Buckleigh, in England.
Bakely’s daughters later successfully sued Blake for wrongful death.
Lost Highway was Jack Nance’s last role. He died under mysterious circumstances before the film was released. David Lynch produced a documentary in his honor, released 2002.
A special thanks to longtime Shemsu Sunner Devin. I knew there was something I was overlooking.
Patricia Arquette is featured in the Lost Highway’s ‘Song to the Siren’ scene.
Arquette also stars in True Romance, which she plays the lover of a young man who is channeling Elvis Presley, who died in Memphis and whose statue overlooks the site of Jeff Buckley’s death. Arquette was cast to play Jeff Buckley’s mother in the unproduced docudrama Mystery White Boy.
True Romance also features Brad Pitt and this memorable use of Chris Cornell’s MDD anthem, ‘Outshined’.
Brad Pitt appears in Jeff Buckley documentary Everybody Here Wants You, which also features Elizabeth Fraser.
Chris Cornell’s tribute to Jeff Buckley, ‘Wave Goodbye,’ is played on the TV series Roswell, set (of course) in New Mexico
Roswell star William Sadler played Death in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, starring Keanu (or Ki-Anu) Reeves
Keanu Reeves played Buddha in Little Buddha, with Bridget Fonda and Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak starred in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the franchise’s last chapter until 2017.
Ben Rosenfield appears in its next chapter.
Rosenfield’s first feature film role is portraying Tim Buckley in the Jeff Buckley biopic, Greetings From Tim Buckley.
Roswell’s William Sadler portrays Lee Underwood (the guitarist on the Starsailor version of ‘Song to the Siren’) in Greetings from Tim Buckley.
Tim Buckley’s first public recording of ‘Song to the Siren’ first heard on the “Frodis Caper” episode of The Monkees, whose plot revolved around the capture of a flying saucer.
The 1994 TV movie Roswell revolved around the capture of a flying saucer in New Mexico.
It aired the very same day Soundgarden played the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Cornell died after Soundgarden played the Fox Theater in Detroit.
Soundgarden performs live in Singles, playing ‘Birth Ritual’. Singles co-star Bill Pullman later stars in Independence Day which centers on a UFO captured at Roswell.
Roswell starred Kyle MacLachlan, who portrays Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks.
Cooper emerges from the Black Lodge into a storeroom where characters played by Rosenfeld and Madeline Zima were last seen.
Madeline Zima starred on Californication (itself loaded with Siren symbolism) alongside David Duchovny.
David Duchovny played a cross-dressing FBI agent on Twin Peaks. He’d later play another FBI agent on The X-Files.
Duchovny would later be replaced on The X-Files by Robert Patrick, brother of original Nine Inch Nails guitarist Richard Patrick (whose band Filter recorded the rock theme for the first X-Files movie).
Robert Patrick first appears on X-Files same episode ‘Scully’s Theme’ first heard, which was based on Elizabeth Fraser’s ‘Song of the Siren’.
Don Davis, who portrayed Major Garland Briggs on Twin Peaks, appeared as Scully’s father on The X-Files. Davis’s first appearance on The X-Files was in ‘Beyond the Sea’, which also guest-starred Brad Dourif.
Brad Dourif appeared in Blue Velvet, the film where Lynch tried and failed to secure rights to Elizabeth Fraser’s version of ‘Song to the Siren’. That film starred Laura Dern, who also appears on the new Twin Peaks.
Laura Dern first appears in Episode 6, which also features this very Blue Velvet-like performance by Balthazar Getty, Patricia Arquette’s lover during Lost Highway’s playing of ‘Song to the Siren’.
‘Song to the Siren’ was produced by John Fryer, who also produced the prophetic ‘In the Gold Dust Rush.’
Fryer also produced the first Nine Inch Nails album.
Nine Inch Nails toured with David Bowie in 1995.
David Bowie appears in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Nine Inch Nails appear on Twin Peaks episode that centers around a locust chimera that possesses a girl through the mouth.
The Nine Inch Nails’ album The Downward Spiral was released the same day as Soundgarden’s Superunknown.
Trent Reznor appears in 2014 documentary Beautiful Noise, about Cocteau Twins and the movement they inspired.
Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden toured together in 2014. They opened in Las Vegas.
Downward Spiral, which was recorded at Manson-massacre house 10050 Cielo Drive, features a sample from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the song ‘Reptile’.*
Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s 2003 remake features cover of Fraser’s cover of “Song to the Siren.”
David Bowie and Trent Reznor sang “Reptile” as a duet on their 1995 tour.
Three days before Downward Spiral released Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser began their love affair in Atlanta, sparked by Fraser’s version of ‘Song to the Siren’.
Fraser is from the Falkirk council area of Scotland, which boasts two enormous statues of the Kelpie, the Scottish water-demon version of the Siren, that shapeshifts from horse to human.
Falkirk is a half-hour’s drive from Rosewell, the town that borders the Rosslyn Chapel.
In the final scene of Episode 8, the possessed young girl is mesmerized by the incantation of a demon who chants an incantation that wouldn’t sound out of place on Garlands:
“This is the water and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within.”
Like the Sirens and the mermaids, the entity is a chimera of a frog and a locust, both plagues that Moses brought down on Egypt in Exodus.
Elizabeth Fraser’s only solo releases are the singles ‘Underwater’ and ‘Moses’.
The girl in Twin Peaks is played by Tikaeni Faircrest. Tikeani is an Inuit word meaning “Wolf.”
After the girl is possessed you hear horses in the desert. Or perhaps it’s the Kelpie.
• Blue Velvet released. Includes ‘Mysteries of Love’, song written when Lynch was unable to license ‘Song of the Siren’. September 1986
• Ccoteau Twins release Love’s Easy Tears EP September 1986.
• Soundgarden release first major label album Louder than Love, September 5, 1989
• Julee Cruise releases her first album Floating into the Night, featuring debut of Twin Peaks theme ‘Falling’. Also features ‘Mysteries of Love’. Released September 12, 1989
• Nine Inch Nails releases first single, ‘Down in It’, September 15, 1989
• Jeff Buckley moves to New York February 1990
• Andrew Wood dies of overdose March 1990
• Twin Peaks premieres April 1990
• Lynch’s Wild at Heart is shown at Cannes. Laura Dern stars. May 1990
• Elizabeth Fraser and Jeff Buckley first meet in New York’s Roseland Ballroom, April 1991
• Jeff Buckley makes his public debut at a tribute to late father Tim Buckley in April 1991
• Chris Cornell releases Temple of the Dog, tribute to late friend Andrew Wood, in April 1991
• Twin Peaks put on hiatus April 1991 (canceled June)
• Superunknown by Soundgarden and The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails released March 8, 1994
• Kurt Cobain is murdered April 5, 1994. Body is discovered morning of April 8, 1994. Cocteau Twins tape appearance on Tonight Show that same afternoon.
• Soundgarden play in Paris that night, where Cocteau Twins’ death-omen “Road, River and Rail” is set.
• Lost Highway, featuring ‘Song of Siren’ released February 1997
• The X-Files airs UFO-capture two-parter in March 1997, guest-starring Tom O’Brien, who later stars on The Dead Zone, whose theme song is Jeff Buckley’s ‘New Years Prayer’, from album co-produced by Chris Cornell.
• Chris Cornell quits Soundgarden in April 1997
• Elizabeth Fraser records ‘Teardrop’, a love letter to Jeff Buckley, same day he drowns in May 1997
• Air Force Roswell Report released June 1997
• Twin Peaks revival announced 2014
• Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails tour together 2014
• Cocteau Twins documentary Beautiful Noise released 2014.
• Chris Cornell dies near site of Siren-like legend May 18, 2017
• Twin Peaks, the Return Premieres May 21, 2017, featuring Cocteau Twins wannabe’s Chromatics
• 70th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, June 24, 2017
• Nine Inch Nails appear on interdimensional-themed episode of Twin Peaks, June 25, 2017
• Elizabeth Fraser to make first public appearance in 5 years, July 23, 2017, the day of the rising of Sirius, to talk about Blue Bell Knoll, whose title comes from fairy lore.
* The published lyrics for the song NIN played on Twin Peaks reuses a lyric from ‘Reptile’: “she leaves a trail of honey to show me where she’s been.” That line is not on the final recording.
Spirit possession, honey, mouth, locusts. Oh, plus gold that isn’t really gold. Why does that all sound so familiar?
† Naomi Watts is married to my wife’s second cousin, Liev Schreiber. Bonnie Lee Bakely is from my old stomping grounds Morristown, which is also Richard Hoagland’s birthplace.