Music Monday

"The Comedians," from Roy Orbison's last album, Mystery Girl. The song was written for Orbison by Elvis Costello. This performance is from Orbison's "Black and White Night" concert, a star-studded tribute/comeback special: Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, K.D. Lang, and Bonnie Raitt, among others, played in the backing band.



Historical Footnote: At the time of this performance, Orbison was experiencing a career resurgence, sparked when his song "In Dreams" was used in the David Lynch movie Blue Velvet. Twenty years later, Lynch used a cover of Orbison's "Crying" as the centerpiece of his movie Mulholland Drive, resulting in one of the strangest, most powerful scenes I've ever watched. I won't post it here, because it's not nearly as effective on its own, but I highly recommend watching the whole movie (if only because it's Lynch's best, and if you don't like it you can safely avoid the rest of his stuff).