Song of Philadelphia

In the Lynchadelphia finale, the season's guests and a few others share a personal David Lynch memory and reflect on how he and his work affected their life. Song of Philadelphia host Julien Suaudeau and his wife Anne Duchene join the chorus and provide conflicting accounts of the role one Lynch film in particular played in pulling them closer to each other. Stick around for the donut in the episo...

Peggy Reavey married David Lynch in 1968. She is a painter and the mother of Jennifer Lynch. As she recalls her final years with Lynch in Philadelphia and their young family's move to California, a new image of the filmmaker and of his creative process comes into focus. "It was his thing, Reavey says, but I knew what it was." Listening to Reavey reflect on her contributions to The Grandmother , Ly...

What if the fear that David Lynch said he found in Philadelphia came from another place, more emotional than physical? According to Peggy Reavey, who married Lynch in 1968 and is the mother of their daughter Jennifer, the young David arrived in the city with a baggage full of insecurities. The first part of a long interview with Reavey, this episode interlaces her memories with Jack Fisk's and sou...

David Lynch often identified Philadelphia as his greatest influence, and Philadelphia has nothing but love for David Lynch. What are the Lynchian places and happenings in the city? In this episode, Eric Bresler talks about bringing the Lady in the Radiator and Sherilyn Fenn to PhilaMOCA. Dennis McNett explains how he created the Lynch mural-memorial on Buttonwood Street. Josh Hitchens, the last Ph...

Although Philadelphia is visible only in a couple of shots in the entire David Lynch's filmography, the city's aura is the primary color and the thread of the cinematic language we have come to recognize as "Lynchian". In this episode, Julien Suaudeau dives deeper into the David Lynch dreamworld and examines the wild ways in which Philly manifests itself in Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and the Tw...

Philadelphia, 1966. In his studio at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, David Lynch is experimenting with ideas, forms, materials, shapes. He is looking for something exciting. One night, he sees movement in the painting he is working on and starts thinking about film. Feeding on the effervescence of the local artistic scene, with the help of his best friend and roommate, fellow PAFA stude...

David Lynch passed on January 16th, 2025. In the Song of Lynchadelphia season opener, Julien Suaudeau travels sixty years back to January 1966 on 13th and Wood, where David Lynch has just moved in with Jack Fisk. As the song of the city echoes in Lynch's films and across the Twin Peaks universe, and as other voices familiar with his work chime in, Jack Fisk recalls how his best friend dreamed up h...

This season: how David Lynch invented his cinematic language of fear and strangeness in Philadelphia. Julien Suaudeau walks around the Eraserhood and explores other Lynchian places in the city, tracking the impressions of Philly in Lynch's work, from the Twin Peaks universe to Mulholland Drive, and wondering how Lynch's art is the product of what he experienced in the city from 1965 to 1970.

In the season two finale, Julien spends one night at Fergie's Pub, where the legendary Larry Robin hosts the weekly Moonstone readings. Larry talks about poets and poetry, poets read their work and talk about Larry, and everyone is wondering how to make it through political violence, climate change, global surveillance, and good old heartbreaks. An oral anthology of Philadelphian voices reflecting...

At 83, Larry Robin sees a lot of ghosts in Philadelphia. In the first part of this season's finale, the legendary bookstore owner, arts-oriented educator and anchor of the city's poetry scene drives around the neighborhoods of his life with Julien Suaudeau. As the two get lost and find their way time and time again, unsure of what they are looking for, Larry's personal and Intellectual foundations...

Kevin Dublin and Julien Suaudeau meet up during lunch break at the Behavioral Wellness Center at Girard. Kevin's workplace is also where his mentor Joe Frazier was admitted in 1971 after the Fight of the Century and where Kevin checked himself in to quit drugs 20 years later. At the Marion Anderson Recreation Center, on 17th and Catharine, Kevin steps into the ring to coach a sparring session and...

With the dilapidated building of Joe Frazier's Gym and the voices of Cambria Street in the background, former light heavyweight Kevin Dublin takes Julien Suaudeau through his old neighborhood and tells him how he met "Smoke" one night in the early 1980's. Story after story, the other side of the world champion comes into focus, what happens in the ring reverberates in a young fighter's life, and m...

Kaia Chau takes Julien Suaudeau around Chinatown-by-night on Lunar New Year. Against a backdrop of firecrackers and lion dance percussions, Kaia and her mom Debbie Wei explain why transgenerational activism is the only way to fight off the relentless attempts to "revitalize" the neighborhood. The secret karaoke room of the No Arena coalition is revealed, a city council citation is given to the Gin...

In the season 2 opener, Julien Suaudeau takes a walk across Chinatown with his former Bryn Mawr College student, young activist and Ginger Arts founder Kaia Chau. Kaia talks about her formative years in the neighborhood, what is still there and what's gone, personal overlaps between Chinatown and South Philly, the commodification of Asian culture, and the relentless targeting of low-income and imm...

This season's theme is "Hanging in there". We walk around Chinatown on Lunar New Year with young activist Kaia Chau as she reflects on the No Arena fight, North Philly with former fighter Kevin Dublin as he reminisces about Joe Frazier and tries to find a way to save Smoke's gym, and Center City with Larry Robin as he continues to support Philly poetry and seeks a way to avoid a new civil war.

In the season one bonus episode, Julien Suaudeau moves Song of Philadelphia to Paris and opens the portals between the two cities. It's time to get personal – and Frenched. Author's note: This episode contains interviews of Parisians I bumped into on the street or the subway. Huge thanks to Bruno the cat, Mama Bijou, Ninon, Nourou, and to everyone at Pharmacie Vavin for giving me their time and ta...

Farah Marasigan talks about given names, code-switching, suburban loneliness, street conversations in South Philly, the aikido community, and finding your voice as an immigrant.

Chanelle Wilson talks about the joys of a West Philly childhood, growing up in a Black city, conflicting versions of Philadelphia, the utopia of equitable real estate, and finding peace by the river.

Andrew Simonet talks about the broken and the beautiful, voices past and present of the public transit system, a politically-charged basketball hoop, what a shaking chandelier will tell you, and the load of grief you can bring to the Schuylkill River.

How much remembering and forgetting happens in our city every day? Can you hear the past humming through the present on the streets of Philadelphia? Julien Suaudeau came over from Paris in 2006 and started to hunt for sounds and stories. Now you can listen to his audio archive, Song of Philadelphia, an exclusive podcast from Hidden City.