A few years ago during the COVID-19 global pandemic, I fell in love with Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World. In 2019, Criterion released an epic 287-minute director’s cut of this ultimate science-fiction road trip staring Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, Sam Neil and Max Von Sydow with gorgeous cinematography by Robby Müller. While the film’s truncated original release bombed at the box office, the motion picture soundtrack was a huge success. In high school, I wore out the CD that featured the biggest names in music at the time like U2, Talking Heads, R.E.M., Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Depeche Mode and more. The album also contained a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” performed by the angelic voice of love, Julee Cruise. But how is her cover song connected to ‘Twin Peaks?’ It wouldn’t have been a thing without David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD SOUNDTRACK, DEC. 10, 1991
Wim Wenders’ film Until The End of the World was released in the United States on December 25, 1991. The accompanying soundtrack was released a few weeks earlier on Tuesday, December 10 (as Tuesdays were typically new release days for music prior to 2015 when all releases were moved to Fridays).
The soundtrack contained 19 tracks, three of which were cues from Graeme Revell’s beautiful score featuring the late David Darling on cello. The remaining tracks included songs that Wim Wenders specifically requested from artists.
In the 2019 documentary “Till the End of The World: Wim Wenders on The Music of Until the End of the World,” he describes himself as a “music junky with having more music than he could handle.” Wenders once made a long “Columbo-like” coat with inside pockets that could hold LPs that he would steal from record shops because he couldn’t afford the music. When compact discs were introduced, he made up for the pilfered music by purchasing 50 to 100 CDs weekly or monthly.
His 1991 film was set about 10 years into the future, on the eve of the year 2000. Since the film was “such a road movie,” there would be plenty of opportunities to play music in the film.
“I figured in the year 2000, they couldn’t listen to old stuff from the ’90s,” laughed Wenders. “So I had this bold idea to write to all my favorite bands asking if they could project themselves into the future. I did write 20 letters, thinking half of them would say ‘no’ or maybe more. Then only two said, ‘No.” So I had a lot of music to deal with and that was another reason why the movie had to be so long.”
The requested artists were sent scenes from the script by Wenders and they produced music that was sort of linked to those scenes.
“In the end, they all wrote stuff that was a little different than what they were doing at the time,” said Wenders.
To the award-winning director, he saw music as part of the storytelling process. It wasn’t just an ingredient or something one added to a film because a “piece of music could do better than any dialogue.”
One track that continually haunted Wenders during production in 1990-1991 was Elvis Presley’s little known song, “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears.”
SUMMER KISSES, WINTER TEARS BY ELVIS PRESLEY
“Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” was one of Wim Wenders’ favorite Elvis Presley song but “nobody knew it.” According to the Elvis Channel by Leon, the song was written by Ben Weisman and Fred Wise with Jack Lloyd for an upcoming western movie staring Elvis titled Flaming Star.
The song was recorded on Aug. 8, 1960 as the second song recorded for the soundtrack session. This song, however, was cut from the film after test audiences were laughing at a scene that was supposed to be serious (the deleted scene itself may be lost to time).
The RCA master of Elvis’ unused song was recorded in 20 takes. The Elvis Channel By Leon created this 41-minute video that traced all of the the takes recorded to create the song known today. Twentieth Century Fox rejected the 20-take version and requested Elvis to re-record his vocals using take seven once his original vocals and the backup singers, The Jordainaires’ vocals were removed.
“This vocal overdub was undertaken at the end of the session and two of the three takes can be heard at the end of this compilation. The first take, which became the master, contains only Elvis’ vocal so is essentially an a capella recording! Drums were then added on August 11 before being inserted into the movie, albeit temporarily,” wrote Leon in the description for his YouTube video.
The song was released as “Elvis by Request: Flaming Star and 3 Other Great Songs,” an EP (extended play) containing four songs with “Flaming Star” as the title track. It’s the only Elvis EP to play at 33⅓ rpm, the normal speed of an LP, while all other of his EPs were at 45 rpm.
With the release of “Elvis For Everyone” on Aug. 10, 1965, “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” was featured as the second song on the first side.
“I just wanted to have it [in the movie] but it seemed pretty impossible to get it,” explained Wenders.”
He didn’t explain why he loved the song but he couldn’t get it out of his head saying he was “obsessed about it.” At one point, he thought they might need to create a new recording of the song for the film.
Elvis’ version does play in early in the film as the character of Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) drives her car from Venice, Italy to France.
She is seen putting a credit card-like song into her car’s audio system which was a futuristic version of cassette singles. Claire holds the card with Elvis’ picture on the front in her mouth while changing the music. At the time, no one imagined iTunes, $.99 downloads or streaming services that would define the new millennium.
“I don’t know how this all happened, but in the end it was David Lynch who produced [a new version of the song],” recalled Wim. “And it was David who suggested Julee Cruise for it.”
JULEE CRUISE’S “SUMMER KISSES, WINTER TEARS’
“David and I had offices next door to each other at Zoetrope Studios in 1978-79 for two years,” explained Wenders in the 2019 documentary. “So as we had both listened to music extensively, we both had a record player in our office and the thin wall between the two of us. Most of the time we were hearing two musics [sic] at the same time. He was playing his loud and I was playing mine loud. Soon eventually we swapped. I knew how much David was into rock ‘n’ roll as well. I always liked his taste.”
Wenders didn’t recall exactly how Lynch approached him about producing a new version of Elvis’ song.
“I tried to get ‘Summer Kisses, Winter Tears’ into the film and at some, I don’t know how that came about, but at some point David said, ‘Let me produce it. I know somebody who can do it.”
A Daily News article from Aug. 28, 1991 announced David Lynch would produce a song for Julee Cruise to “be included on the soundtrack for the new Wim Wenders movie, ‘Until the End of the World.’ This article was published just days before production would begin in Snoqualmie Valley, Washington on Sept. 4-5 for Lynch’s 1992 masterpiece, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
According to an interview with Cruise by Craig Miller and John Thorne for “Wrapped in Plastic” issue #7, there was another track being considered for Wenders’ film soundtrack. David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti wrote “Until the End of the World” which would later appear on her 1993 sophomore album, “The Voice of Love.” At the time, the trio had no idea U2 would submit a song with the same name. It’s unclear when the decision was made to switch from “Until the End of the World” to “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears.”
Considering the film’s soundtrack would be released about three months later, it could mean that Julee recorded the track before she began performing Mrs. Gloria Prospero in the the Off-Broadway production of “Return to the Forbidden Planet.” The play opened on Sept. 27, 1991. A few weeks later, Julee performed her “Questions in a World of Blue” scene on Oct. 14 on the Roadhouse set built in Van Nuys, California. She returned to Broadway the next day.
I wonder if “Questions” and “Summer Kisses” were recorded around the same time, possibly in August before production started on Lynch’s film.
According to the “Until the End of the World” soundtrack credits, the song was produced by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. The engineer and mixer was Mick Guzauski. The Dave Alvin Band from Hightone Records accompanied Cruise’s vocals. Band members included:
- Dave Alvin – Lead Guitar
- Greg Leisz – Guitar and Lap Steel Guitar
- Steve Hodges – Drums
- Don Falzone – Bass
- Angelo Badalamenti and Eric Drew Feldman – Additional Keyboards
WHO IS THE DAVE ALVIN BAND?
American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer, David Albert Alvin was born November 11, 1955. He grew up in Downey, California with older brother, Phil Alvin and later attended Long Beach State University. A former and founding member of the roots rock band the Blasters, Alvin has recorded and performed as a solo artist since the late 1980s. He also had brief stints as a member of the bands X and the Knitters. In 1991, Alvin his second solo album, Blue Blvd, was released by Hightone Records.
On Jan. 17, 2025, Dave published this tribute on his Facebook page following David Lynch’s passing where he mentions working on a song for the late Julee Cruise along with music for the unproduced Ronnie Rocket.
“I can’t say that we ever hung out together at his favorite hang, Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake, but for a couple of years, around 1989/90, I did guitar work for him on a few of his projects. I played some background guitar for his Twin Peaks TV show as well as on a song he produced for the late vocalist, Julee Cruise. The most interesting stuff I did with him, though, was for the soundtrack of a film that wound up never getting made.
His storyline involved (and I ain’t joking) a dwarf blues guitar player in early 1950s Chicago who is also an extraterrestrial from outer space. Mr Lynch and I did three sessions where he would describe a series of abstract images to me then ask me to create some sonic landscapes to enhance the images.
One of my favorites of Mr Lynch’s scene descriptions was:
‘Now, Dave, imagine an old conveyor belt full of liquid metal. The conveyor belt with the liquid metal then travels into these gigantic, antiquated, rusty machines where this liquid metal experiences some sort of loud, transmogrifying process inside the machines that turns the liquid metal into beautiful sparks of wild electricity. And please make it sound like Muddy Waters but also don’t make it sound like Muddy Waters.’
Along with drummer Stephen Hodges and bassist Don Falzone, I came up with something that sounded like a cross between Muddy Waters, Bitches Brew era Miles Davis and The Cramps. Mr Lynch loved it. Needless to say, I wish I had tapes of those sessions and, damn, I wish that movie had been made.”
‘SUMMER KISSES, WINTER TEARS’ RELEASED AS SINGLES IN THE U.K. AND EUROPE
While the song was included on the film’s soundtrack, it was also released as a single on vinyl, cassette and compact disc in the United Kingdom and Europe.
The film was released in the U.K. on April 24. Based on extensive research, it appears the singles were released Monday, Apr. 27, 1992. New music was typically released on Mondays in the U.K. while the United States saw new releases on Tuesdays until 2015. A mention in the Coventry Evening Telegraph on Apr. 29 mentions “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” being available as a single.
The front of the 7-inch vinyl single contains a watercolor image of Julee Cruise.
The photo used was taken by David Lynch around 1989 during production of “Floating Into The Night.”
The 7-inch vinyl released in the U.K. has a catalog number of W0095, 5439-18949-7. The credits state Lynch created the watercolor image of Julee while Tom Recchion created the montage and design. The sleeve back contains images of the “Until the End of the World” soundtrack and Cruise’s “Floating Into The Night.”
Side A of the single contains “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” with a runtime of 2-minutes and 37-seconds.
Side B contains “Falling” from Cruise’s 1989 album with a runtime of 5-minutes and 18-seconds.
A cassette single was also released in the U.K. and Europe, which also contained only two tracks – “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” and “Falling”
The CD single for “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” contains the similar watercolor / photo of Julee Cruise.
The catalog number for the CD single is 9362-40411-2, W0095CD. Similar to the vinyl single, it has images from the soundtrack and Cruise’s 1989 album.
The CD single contains one additional track – “The Nightingale (4-minutes, 54-second)” which is not found on the 7-inch vinyl single. The 12-inch vinyl single (which I also need), however, also has this additional track.
REVIEWS OF ‘SUMMER KISSES, WINTER TEARS”
Frank Owen’s review published just five days after the soundtrack’s release calls out Julee Cruise: “David Lynch’s favorite new age chanteuse, Julee Cruise, makes an appearance with a slight, fragile but impossibly gorgeous love song called ‘Summer Kisses, Winter Tears.'”
Chuck Campbell reviewed the soundtrack which was published in the Anderson Independent Mail on Jan. 5, 1992 where he mentioned Cruise’s tune: “Yet there’s value in gloom. The soft shuffle of Julee Cruise’s ‘Summer Kisses, Winter Tears’ (produced by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti) is a nice complement for her little-girl voice.”
Chris Willman published a review of the film’s soundtrack in The Los Angeles Times on Jan. 12, 1992. He mentions Julee Cruise’s song: “Cruise’s remake of ‘Summer Kisses, Winter Tears’ is the melancholy pop balled she was born to whisper.”
There are plenty more examples of similar comments about Cruise’s beautiful tune published in newspapers and trade magazines.
“As much as I love the Elvis Presley song, the Julee Cruise song – it was just even better,” remarked director Wim Wenders in the 2019 documentary.
I have to agree. Just take a listen.
You can download high-resolution scans of the album artwork on my Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aloha75/albums/72177720326919142
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