The word ‘iconic’ gets systematically misused, and overused, but it deserves to apply to the opening credits of Twin Peaks. And especially to Angelo Badalementi’s score.

Twin Peaks was the first appointment TV show I remember: we’d stay in to watch it every week and the opening notes of that music – simultaneously sinister and soothing – would cause an immediate frisson of excitement and expectation.

I never got tired of hearing it: the twang of that Fifties-style guitar; the ripple of the piano; the warm embrace of the strings. It’s the perfect marriage of music to the images, melody and counter-melody.

That small town in the Pacific North-West with its lumber factory, diner, hotel, waterfall and the river on whose bank the body of homecoming queen Laura Palmer is discovered in episode 1 comes back right away.

So do those characters: Agent Cooper and Sheriff Harry S.Truman, Laura’s cokehead dad Leland, best friend Donna, boyfriend Bobby Briggs, drug dealer Jacques Renault and shrink Dr Jacoby, diner waitress Shelley. And the Log Lady… and Bob.

Anyway, I never knew til now that Badalamenti’s long association with David Lynch began when the young director brought him in to work on Blue Velvet in 1986 – not to compose the score but as voice coach for Isabella Rosselini.

Here’s what Angelo told Spirit & Flesh magazine about the experience: ‘David came to my little office across from Carnegie Hall and said, “I have this idea for a show, Northwest Passage.” I remember saying, “That sounds like something I read in junior high school.”

‘He sat next to me at the keyboard and said, “I haven’t shot anything, but it’s like you are in a dark woods with an owl in the background and a cloud over the moon and sycamore trees are blowing very gently….”

‘I started to press the keys for the opening chord to “Twin Peaks Love Theme,” because it was the sound of that darkness. He said, “A beautiful troubled girl is coming out of the woods, walking towards the camera….” I played the sounds he inspired. “And she comes closer and it reaches a climax and….”

‘I continued with the music as he continued the story. “And from this, we let her go back into the dark woods.” The notes just came out. David was stunned, as was I. The hair on his arms was up and he had tears in his eyes: “I see Twin Peaks. I got it.” I said, “I’ll go home and work on it.” “Work on it?! Don’t change a note.” And of course I never did.’

RIP Angelo Badalamenti (1937-2022)