Showtime's revival of of the David Lynch series Twin Peaks has so far closed most of its episodes with a live performance by various bands playing at the fictional Bang Bang Club. For the third episode, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost tapped the Minnesota-based band The Cactus Blossoms, a duo that croons 1950s-era country songs with slow-burning, two-part harmonies. The song they performed, "Mississippi," perfectly captures the strange unease and surreal mystery Twin Peaks is known for.
Now that song has a new video, directed by Sarah Jean Shervin, that features The Cactus Blossom's Jack Torrey and Page Burkum singing impassively as they float like dead bodies in a dark lake.
"It's the mysterious journey of someone who gives up and jumps into the river as the golden sun sets in the distance," Torrey tells NPR Music in an email. "I'm not sure if he sinks or floats by the end of the song, but there is a peaceful thing that happens when he contemplates all of the friends he'll never meet and sees her face shimmering on the water and fading away as he descends. It occurred to me at some point that he's kind of a George Bailey character [from It's A Wonderful Life] — his life flashes before his eyes and he finally realizes how wonderful it really is. There aren't a lot of details, so it could be anybody in any town."
Torrey says the band's appearance on Twin Peaks felt like fate. "[It's] such a wild and beautiful thing. When we were recording the album and heard what the new songs were sounding like we even joked that if we keep going down this road that Lynch might find us. It's a strange world!"
"Mississippi" is from The Cactus Blossom's 2016 full-length You're Dreaming.
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