Twin Peaks Publicity – “Just You” from Twin Peaks Episode 2.002

There are some photographs in this world that I can hear. Take this publicity photo of James Marshall, Sheryl Lee and Lara Flynn Boyle from Twin Peaks episode 2.002 (#9). As I stare at this image from the David Lynch-directed episode, I can’t help hearing James’ falsetto voice.  I acquired this slide in an auction lot of about 30 images from David Lynch and Mark Frost’s wonderful and strange show. Did you know this now iconic song was not mentioned in Harley Peyton’s original script? It was made up on set.

“JUST YOU” FROM TWIN PEAKS EPISODE 2.002 (#9)

The publicity photo of James Hurley (James Marshall), Maddy Ferguson (Sheryl Lee) and Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle) shows the trio gathered in the living room on the Hayward House set in Van Nuys, California. They appear to be signing “Just You” from Twin Peaks episode 2.002 (#9) which aired on October 6, 1990.

The angle of the publicity photo is slightly different that the broadcast version of this scene. It seems like the on-set photographer (which could have been someone from either ABC Television or Paula K Shimatsu-u) was standing near the camera as the action was being recorded.

For whatever reason, I never noticed that both Donna and Maddy are barefoot in this scene.

The photo slide I received contained handwritten actor credits for “Twin Peaks” along with the name Howie. This slide was one of several from the Hollywood News Service. There is little information about this company other than the late Roger Asquith may have managed the company in the 1960s.

According to his author page on Prestbury Books, Asquith first “operated a radio in the Royal Air Force and was later trained as a Marine Radio Officer in London. He then set sail around the world on British, Australian, Swedish vessels and finally the hell ship known as the CUBAN TRADER.

After a year as a trainee TV cameraman for the CBC in Canada, Roger went to Hollywood. Unable to get a job in television. Roger first worked in the sound department at Walt Disney on the dubbing of Lady and the Tramp into foreign languages, the managed the HOLLYWOOD NEWS SERVICE writing articles for British, Australian and American magazines where he hobnobbed with stars from Elvis Presley, Bette Davis, George Cukor, Marilyn Monroe to Lucille Ball.”

Publicity slides were shared with news publications for use in newspapers, magazines and other printed sources.

OTHER PUBLICITY PHOTOS FROM “JUST YOU”

There are other publicity photos from this scene including a cropped shot of Marshall playing guitar.

The publicity photo is a side view of James. It’s a different view than what we see in the broadcast version. Most likely, the photographer knelt down from her or his angle to capture the shot of James playing guitar.

According to Jeff Moore, the Twin Peaks season two prop master, James got to pick out the props for this scene.

“James and I had fun picking the props for this scene,” explained Jeff on Threads. “David gave us free rein to pick whatever. For James, it was the guitar. We both chose the amp, and I insisted on the old style mic.”

There is a similar cropped shot of Sheryl and Lara singing. The photographer just turned the camera from James to the ladies gathered around the microphone.

Brad Dukes asked Sheryl Lee if it really was her voice singing the background track in a two-part interview for Twin Peaks Archive.

“Brad – So, speaking of surrealism, there is a scene of you, James Marshall and Lara Flynn Boyle singing the song ‘Just You and I’ and it’s juxtaposed with this really frightening image of BOB. It’s such a classic David Lynch moment, did you actually sing on that track? If so, what do you remember about doing that?

Sheryl – Yes, that’s actually my voice and that…see it’s funny, even though that was twenty-seven years ago, I don’t remember doing the Phil Donahue Show but I remember being in the recording studio with Angelo Badalamenti and his musicians as clear as day! As if it was yesterday. Going in there to sing, I was so scared but Angelo Badalamenti is one of my favorite favorite people and a dear dear man. I was like, if anybody can get me to sing it would be Angelo, and he did! So that was really us singing (big laugh) And that was a great day, a great day. That was so fun! You know, anytime you get to do something as an artist that is in the medium that you’re not usually working in, it can be really delightful to be able to express yourself in a different way. You know? And that’s what that was.”

Notice the Coca-Cola bottles and the half-full glasses on the side table in the background. The soda is mentioned in Harley Peyton’s original draft but “Just You” is missing.

HARLEY PEYTON’S ORIGINAL SCENE BETWEEN JAMES, DONNA AND MADDY

Harley Peyton wrote the Lynch-directed episode 2.002 between July 7-18, 1990. There were several revisions to the script as the days passed which were printed on different color paper.

• July 7, 1990 – BLUE
• July 11, 1990 – PINK
• July 13, 1990 – GREEN
• July 18, 1990 – YELLOW

The original scene between James, Donna and Maddy opened act four.

FADE IN:
EXT. HAYWARD HOUSE – NIGHT
JAMES HURLEY sits on a couch in the living room, holds a guitar in his hands. Donna sits in a chair nearby, watches him play.

It’s a slow blues riff, snakes and ladders up the fret board. James concentrates with typically solemn expression, lost in the music. Then he looks up, sees Maddy return to the room with a soda.

Maddy smiles, sways to the music. Then, slowly, she begins to dance. It’s a sweet sudden moment. Maddy dancing across the carpet, hips rolling side to side, her body keeping time. James stares at Maddy. The sexy steps. The easy smile. It could almost be Laura dancing there.

Donna sees it too. She frowns, steps quickly from the room.

DONNA
Excuse me.

James abruptly stops playing. Maddy dances a single beat after, then freezes. James follows

Donna toward the kitchen.

During the 2013 Twin Peaks Festival, James Marshall explained how “Just You” was created on set. This was reported by Welcome to Twin Peaks on August 13, 2017 and DangerousMinds.net on Oct. 9, 2017.

“I play guitar a lot and I used to bring my guitar to the set. … David Lynch heard about it and said, ‘Would you be comfortable doing a song on the show?’”

Here’s a loose transcription of Marshall’s account from Dangerous Minds (with verbal filler removed, tightened in places):

The day rolls around and I go up to the set like he asked me to, Angelo’s standing there — it was the Hayward house because there was an upright piano in it, so we got to use the piano to write. So he goes, “What is the vibe that you want to do?” And I said, “Well, the vibe of the whole series is timeless? But it — we don’t want to go Fifties, but almost a little Fifties sort of feel? When I think of Fifties, we could do a doowop kind of feel, but make it falsetto doowop but almost Beatles falsetto doowop, we’re not going to “sha na na” or whatever, make it something etheric [prob. “ethereal”]. They go, “What song?” and Angelo starts messing around on the keyboards. I go, “No, not fast, let’s go slow.” All three of us have this banter back and forth of how the song should go. Angelo said name a song because David was stuck. … So I go, “When I think of Fifties I think of ‘Only You.’” … that real romantic, over-the-top, shredding keyboards almost to distortion. Bowie’s good at that, old Bowie stuff. Right? So I go, “It can’t be that, but that vibe.” And Angelo goes, “Got it!”

James shared a similar story on March 1, 2020 during the Fayetteville Comic Show 2020 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“It does have kind of a weird story. Just to preface it, thank you guys for putting up with it … some people actually like it, which is cool. And I like it too in a way. It’s just a little more quirky than it, you know, which is was why he [David Lynch] likes it now and he keeps it and stuff. It’s quirky. I brought a guitar to the set every day. When there was a break I was being in my trailer annoying certain people around trying to meditate.

So [David] said, ‘Do you want to do a song on the show?’ Immediately in my head I thought he said, ‘Do you want to play on the show, the guitar?’ I thought immediately it would be some leads or something as sort of maybe you catch James like doing some leads and then a scene starts and he puts the guitar down. He said, ‘No, like a full blown song.’ So I go, ‘Okay, you mean singing and everything?’

So we go into the Briggs house where there was … oh, I’m sorry, it wasn’t the Briggs house, it was Donna’s house where there was a piano and Angelo [Badalamenti] and David. So I’m sitting there and he said we’re going to write this song and we’re going to go do it in two weeks and record it. We’re sitting down and he’s like, ‘What did you want to do? What kind of vibe did you want to do?’

I said, ‘Something probably fifties, kind of mix 50s old rock and roll but something a little bit now.’ He asked, ‘Like what 50s?” and I said, ‘Well like that old doowop like ‘Only You’ falsetto …’

[James imitates David singing “Just You”]. ‘Angelo, do the [motions to playing a piano],’ David says. Angelo starts playing the piano. Lynch continues ‘And I.’ Angelo chimes in ‘Together’ and we all said ‘In Love.’ That’s literally how it went.”

David and Angelo recorded all the music but it was in the wrong key for James’ falsetto. David hated it at first but it grew on him. James asked to re-record it in his range but David responded, “James, this is phenomenal.”

It really is!