Bobby Vinton Recalls Movie 'Blue Velvet' And Meeting David Lynch
Yahoo! Music, Sep 22, 2000 12:00 pm PDT(9/22/00, 12 p.m. ET) - This week marks the 37th anniversary of Bobby Vinton's song "Blue Velvet" topping the pop chart and, coincidentally, this week also marks the 14th anniversary of the release of the David Lynch movie of the same name.
Blue Velvet was a dark and bizarre film about a succession of weird occurrences in a seemingly sleepy small American town. Despite its strangeness, the film was one of the most critically acclaimed movies of 1986. LAUNCH asked Vinton if he'd ever met Lynch. "David Lynch came to Vegas," he recalled. "I was performing there. He spent a week with me as he was writing it. I said, 'What do I have to do with the movie Blue Velvet? I mean, it's weird. You're weird.' And he says, 'Hey, I need that Bobby Vinton simplicity: white picket fence, that wholesome all-American.' He says, 'You were able to create a mood on two-and-a-half minutes of your record. There's a mood, and if I can create moods on my movies like you create. . .I just want to know more about you.'"
Vinton said he was curious about why the director wanted to use his song in such a disturbing movie. "I said, 'Yeah, your movie's about perversion and all. Why don't you get a rock band with guys with long hair?' He says, 'No, no, no, no. I want your simplicity and honesty, and then when I go into my subject matter into the movie, it's gonna be really a contrast and it's gonna shock the audience.'"
Lynch actually offered Vinton a role in Blue Velvet, but the singer turned it down. He told LAUNCH he lived to regret it. "[Lynch] says, 'You want a part in the movie? Play the detective at the end or something? I'll put you in,'" Vinton remembered. "I said, 'Nah, nah,' 'cause I think he ended up making the movie on the East Coast, and when I was back in L.A., I said, 'Nah, I'd have to get on a plane and travel.' I had no idea it would be such a big movie. I had no idea."
-- Sue Falco, New York
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