Diane, this is one story we certainly didn’t see coming. According to a recently resurfaced interview with Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamenti, Queen Elizabeth II once opted out of a private Paul McCartney set to go watch David Lynch’s cult TV show — on her birthday, of all days.
Badalamenti, who co-wrote almost all of Twin Peaks’ unforgettable music, recalled the story as it was told to him by McCartney in a 2011 interview with NME. The Queen’s urgency implies that this incident went down at her birthday party in either 1990 or 1991, when Twin Peaks was airing new episodes on ABC.
“Back when Twin Peaks was kicking off around the world, I flew by Concorde to London, to work with Paul McCartney at Abbey Road,” Badalamenti explained. “He said, ‘Let me tell you a story’. Not long before we met, he’d been asked to perform for the Queen for her birthday celebrations. And when he met her, he started to say, ‘I’m honored to be here tonight, your Majesty, and I’m going to play some music for you.’ And the Queen says, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t stay, it’s five to eight and I have to go and watch Twin Peaks!’”
Now we know that the Queen celebrated at least one of her birthdays exactly the way we’d want to. You can also hear Badalamenti tell the story in a clip below, pulled from a Twin Peaks DVD set.
Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of 96 on September 8th, after 70 years on the throne. As the second-longest serving monarch in recorded history, her death spawned a vast array of reactions. As for McCartney, he just capped off his 2022 tour with a performance at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in London.