In 2017, as the final episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return hit the airwaves, Devery Doleman and bassist/vocalist Julie Rozansky conjured a supergroup to perform Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti’s eerie ballads from Twin Peaks for a Halloween show. The experience was electric, stirring something fierce and unexpected; what began as a one-time homage quickly evolved into a dedicated band: Fuck You, Tammy! Building on that first spark, they delved deeper into the David Lynch universe, collecting a fervent following along the way.
Today FYT members Devery Doleman, Julie Rozansky, Nate Smith, Bill Ferullo, Blaise Dahl, and Anthony Cekay, unveil their brilliant cover of Sycamore Trees. Layered guitars and ghostly vocals create a haunting ambiance; Doleman weaves a siren’s spell with her plaintive delivery. The melody moves like a murmur in the dark, intertwining with potent riffs that amplify the song’s emotional pull.
“Our live arrangement developed over years of playing shows, and had grown into something so beautiful that it made me have to make this record,” says Doleman. “You take me for a walk/ under the Sycamore Trees” is, to me, about being led into a space of potentially terrifying or sublime transformation, much like the experience of entering world of a Lynch film: I wanted the song to be that invitation, and it’s the portal to the world of the rest of the record. I envisioned the expansiveness of a Bond theme with the menace of Portishead – and instead of being in the hermetic space of the Red Room, I wanted you to follow her into the dark woods, and there she encounters the saxophone solo- the ghostly presence that is waiting for her. The layered guitars and meticulously controlled feedback with the synths evoke the dark woods – the grand piano, the stars overhead, and far, far away. The original is beautiful and feels like someone telling a sad and terrible story – ours is that story unfolding in real-time.”
Fuck You Tammy’s version of Sycamore Trees is like slipping into a world with no fixed edges—a dark, unsettling place where familiar points of reference disappear, leaving only the voice to guide you deeper into the unknown. You start in a dim hallway, a vague sense of space, and, like a monitor flickering to life, you’re enchanted and hypnotized.
The video for the song, directed by ioulex, brings to mind Lee Friedlander’s 1960s photographs of motel-room televisions, broadcasting pop iconography into anonymous spaces—dark, omnipresent, as if the screens themselves know something we don’t. The clip also conjures up echoes of The Night of the Hunter, written by James Agee, and directed by Charles Laughton. Like a weight dragging you into an ominous night sky, you float through an endless void, inching further into the unknown. In homage, there’s also a nod to Julee Cruise’s Floating Into the Night cover—the voice the Lynchian linchpin.
It’s worth noting that Doleman’s voice bears no resemblance to Jimmy Scott’s haunting tones, but rather leans more toward the ethereal allure of Chrystabell—the singer whose role in The Return inspired the band’s name. Doleman’s voice, cool and spectral, feels like a soft presence drifting through the air, carrying an unearthly elegance. It’s a voice tethered somewhere between worlds, echoing with a wistful quality that beckons yet eludes, lingering at the edge of something just out of reach.
In this strange realm, she’s in good company, as though her voice belongs to a cast of characters caught between this life and the next. There’s a sense of inevitability, a touch of fate in her tone, guiding listeners into that peculiar Lynchian dimension where everything familiar feels just slightly off-kilter, transformed and illuminated with a pale, otherworldly light.
Watch the video for “Sycamore Trees” below:
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