Paul McCartney’s Wild Teen Hitchhiking Story About George Harrison

Paul McCartney has a lot of Beatles memories. But the one he shared on The Rest Is History podcast this week might be the most unexpectedly hilarious — and it involves a very slow vehicle, a very unfortunate zipper, and a very shocked George Harrison.

Speaking with host Tom Holland on the May 15 episode, McCartney looked back on a teenage hitchhiking trip the two took together while making their way toward Wales. Short on options, the young future rock legends accepted a ride on an electric milk float — one of those slow-rolling delivery vehicles that were a common sight on British streets at the time.

“Those were the only vehicles we knew that were electric, [and this one] went about four miles an hour,” McCartney said. “But it was a lift, so we were quite happy.”

The driver sat on one side. A large battery sat in the middle. And Harrison, unluckily, sat directly on top of it.

The Moment Everything Went Wrong

For a while, everything was fine. Then the metal zipper on the back pocket of Harrison’s jeans made contact with part of the battery.

“Bang! He jumps up,” McCartney recalled, mimicking Harrison’s yelp of “Ahhh!”

The result? What McCartney described as “a great big zip tattooed into his bum” — a temporary burn mark left behind by the jolt. The 83-year-old clearly still finds it funny decades later.

McCartney also mentioned that he recently brought the story up with Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison — and got a surprise. She remembered hearing the incident differently. In her version, it was McCartney who got shocked, not Harrison.

Rather than getting defensive about it, McCartney found the whole thing kind of beautiful. “I think it’s amazing the way memory does that. It can just morph,” he said.

A Story That Became a Song

The hitchhiking mishap didn’t just stay a dinner party anecdote. McCartney says it found its way into his music — specifically into a track on his upcoming album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, due out later this month. It’s a reminder that for McCartney, life and songwriting have always been inseparable. Even a painful moment on a four-mile-an-hour milk truck can become something worth keeping.

Harrison, of course, went on to become one of the most beloved musicians of the 20th century alongside McCartney, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr in The Beatles. He died in November 2001. McCartney has said that a fir tree — a gift from Harrison — sits somewhere he sees it every day, a quiet, living reminder of his old friend.

It’s the kind of detail that makes a funny story feel like something more. Two teenage boys on a slow electric truck headed to Wales, not yet famous, just happy to have a ride — and one of them about to get the shock of his life.