• Paul McCartney shared a funny story about George Harrison getting shocked on a teenage hitchhiking trip to Wales
• The pair hitched a ride on a slow-moving electric milk float, and Harrison’s zipper made contact with the battery
• McCartney, 83, told the story on The Rest Is History podcast, hosted by Tom Holland
• The incident inspired a song on his upcoming album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, out later this month
• Harrison’s widow Olivia remembers the story differently — and McCartney says that’s exactly the point

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.

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• Paul McCartney, 83, says he refuses fan selfies because they make him feel “like a monkey” on display
• He revealed even Oprah Winfrey was stunned by his “radical” no-photos stance
• McCartney admitted he’s baffled by influencer culture and “people who don’t seem particularly talented” becoming famous
• The comments came ahead of his new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, out May 29

Paul McCartney has been one of the most recognizable faces on the planet for over 60 years — and he’d very much like to keep some of that life to himself, thank you very much. The Beatles legend, 83, opened up on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast with hosts Richard Osman and Marina Hyde about why he flatly refuses to pose for fan photos, why influencer culture leaves him scratching his head, and what it actually feels like to be that famous for that long.

The selfie thing, he says, comes down to something deeply personal. “As time’s gone by, things have changed. Now — phones. So if I meet someone, they’re reaching for their phone, and I say: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t do pictures,'” McCartney explained. “And that is radical these days.”

Radical enough, apparently, to catch Oprah Winfrey off guard. “I told that to Oprah — I’m name-dropping now — and she said: ‘You don’t do pictures?’ I said: ‘No.’ She said: ‘Why?’ I said: ‘I don’t want to.’ It’s as simple as that.”

The Monkey on the Beach

But McCartney doesn’t just leave fans with a flat no. He goes deeper — and he’s got a whole story ready for the occasion. It involves a beach in Saint-Tropez, a stranger with a monkey, and a pay-per-photo setup that, to McCartney, captures exactly what he’s trying to avoid.

“I go into this long explanation about how, down on the south coast of France in Saint-Tropez, there’s a man on the beachfront who has a monkey, and you pay to have your photo taken with the monkey,” he said. “I really do not want to feel like that monkey. And when I take a picture with someone, I do feel like him. I’m not me anymore — I’m suddenly something else.”

It’s not about ego, he insists. It’s the opposite. “Something important to me, something related to your question about innocence and staying normal, would be lost. The minute I start thinking I’m something above myself, I won’t like me. It’s very important for me to just be me.”

He also pointed out that celebrity attitudes toward fame have shifted dramatically over the decades. When the Beatles first broke through, nobody was complaining about being recognized. “When you’re first famous, you love it — because it’s what you were trying to achieve. So something goes well, people in the street recognise you, and you love it. There was none of this, ‘Oh, people are bothering me’ — that’s a modern affliction. We loved it. And you learn to deal with it.”

On Influencers: “People Who Don’t Seem Particularly Talented”

From there, McCartney turned his attention to the broader cultural shift around fame — and he didn’t exactly hold back. Asked what baffles him most about the 21st century, he landed squarely on influencer culture.

“I think a lot of this influencer stuff — I just don’t really get it, because I’m not that generation,” he said. “But you can’t help seeing it. My wife will be looking at Instagram and showing me something, and then one of those will come on.”

“I think it’s funny — and I suppose it always happened — but people who don’t seem to be particularly talented are incredibly famous. Billions of hits and views.”

He caught himself mid-thought, aware of how it might land. “You’ve got to be careful about saying that, because it makes you sound very old-fashioned. Which I am.”

Fair enough. But it’s hard to argue with a man who co-wrote “Hey Jude.”

New Music, Old Memories

The podcast appearance comes as McCartney gears up to release The Boys of Dungeon Lane on May 29 — his first solo album in five years. The 14-track record draws on memories from his formative years in Liverpool, including early adventures with his late bandmates George Harrison and John Lennon, long before any of them were famous.

He named the album after Dungeon Lane, a spot near his childhood home on Forthlin Road in the Liverpool suburb of Speke. The first taste of the project arrived Friday with “Home To Us,” a duet with Sir Ringo Starr — the last surviving Beatle alongside McCartney — a collaboration that already feels like something fans will hold onto for a long time.

McCartney has described the inspiration behind the album simply: “a lot of memories of Liverpool.” Given everything he shared on the podcast — the desire to stay grounded, to stay himself, to not become the monkey on the beach — it sounds like the record is very much about remembering who he was before the world decided who he’d be.

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• Apple Corps has announced 3 Savile Row in London will open as an official Beatles fan experience in 2027
• The seven-floor attraction will include never-before-seen archive material, a recreated recording studio, and access to the famous rooftop
• Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have both backed the project, with McCartney saying he recently visited the building
• The rooftop railings are reportedly unchanged from the day of the band’s final public performance on January 30, 1969
• The announcement comes as four Sam Mendes-directed Beatles biopics are in production for 2028

For decades, Beatles fans have made the pilgrimage to a quiet Mayfair townhouse, standing on the pavement outside, craning their necks up at the rooftop where it all ended. That’s about to change. Apple Corps has announced that 3 Savile Row — the legendary London building where the Fab Four recorded Let It Be and played their final public concert — will open to the public for the first time, as an official fan experience launching in 2027.

Titled “The Beatles at 3 Savile Row,” the ticketed attraction will span all seven floors of the building, offering access to never-before-seen archive material, rotating exhibitions, a recreated version of the basement recording studio used during the Let It Be sessions, and — most significantly — the rooftop itself, where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr played for 42 unannounced minutes on a blustery Thursday afternoon on January 30, 1969, before police pulled the plug on a noise complaint. (The band managed to plug back in and play “Get Back” one final time before it was over for good.)

“Every single day, fans are taking pictures of the outside of 3 Savile Row,” Apple Corps CEO Tom Greene said in the announcement. “But next year they can go in and explore all seven floors of the iconic building, including the rooftop where even the railings remain the same from that famous day in 1969.”

McCartney and Starr Give Their Blessing

Both living Beatles are on board. McCartney revealed he’d recently made a private visit to the building ahead of the announcement. “It was such a trip to get back to 3 Savile Row recently and have a look around,” he said. “There are so many special memories within the walls, not to mention the rooftop. The team have put together some really impressive plans and I’m excited for people to see it when it’s ready.”

Starr, characteristically, kept it short and perfect: “Wow, it’s like coming home.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan called the rooftop concert “one of the most iconic moments in music history” and said the attraction “will captivate Londoners and visitors from across the globe.” UK Creative Industries Minister Ian Murray also weighed in, noting — with an unavoidable Beatles pun — that it would allow people to “‘Come Together’ and experience the band like never before.”

A Building That Holds the Whole Story

For fans who know their Beatles history, 3 Savile Row carries an almost unbearable amount of weight. The building served as the headquarters for Apple Corps, the company the band founded, and its basement studio was where they gathered in early 1969 — already fracturing, already exhausted — to record what would become their final album. George Harrison famously told the camera during those sessions, “Maybe we should get a divorce.” The footage ended up in Peter Jackson’s acclaimed 2021 documentary series Get Back, which reframed those sessions for a new generation and helped spark renewed global fascination with the band.

Holly Tessler, a Beatles tourism expert at the University of Liverpool, told the New York Times that the address is already one of only two major Beatles landmarks in London — the other being the Abbey Road zebra crossing — but that until now, fans could only stand outside. “Very few people have been inside,” she said. “I’d love to see it.” She also noted that the discord surrounding the Let It Be era, far from being a deterrent, only deepens fan curiosity about that chapter of the band’s story.

Britain already has Beatles museums in Liverpool, but this will be the first officially licensed by Apple Corps — making it the definitive experience for anyone who wants to stand where the band stood on that final day. Lennon’s last words into the microphone that afternoon: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”

The Beatles Moment Won’t Stop Coming

The timing couldn’t be more loaded. Director Sam Mendes is deep in production on four separate Beatles biopics — one for each band member — set for release in April 2028. It marks the first time Apple Corps has ever granted full music and life story rights to a scripted film. The cast is stacked: Harris Dickinson as Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Starr, Paul Mescal as McCartney, and Joseph Quinn as Harrison. Mendes himself visited Savile Row while researching the films and clearly felt it too.

“I’ve looked around a lot of Beatles sites in making these movies, but there is something special in the air at Savile Row,” he said. “How wonderful that fans will now have a chance to see it on screen and in person. To actually be on the rooftop where it happened.”

Meanwhile, McCartney and Starr recently released their first-ever duet, “Home to Us,” ahead of McCartney’s upcoming solo album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, due May 29. Starr dropped his own solo record, Long Long Road, in April. And at a recent intimate listening event at Abbey Road Studios — another address that needs no introduction — McCartney played songs from the new album and got reflective. “I still get a little bit emotional talking about John and George,” he said, looking around the studio. “This is where we worked.”

The building at 3 Savile Row is understood to be a long-term attraction, not a temporary installation — sitting just a short walk from Carnaby Street, another landmark of Swinging Sixties London. Specific ticket details and an opening date within 2027 have yet to be announced.

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• Apple Corps Ltd. is opening The Beatles at 3 Savile Row, the first official Beatles fan experience, in London in 2027.
• The seven-floor attraction will include never-before-seen archive material, a recreation of the original Let It Be studio, and access to the famous rooftop.
• Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have both shared reactions, with Starr calling it “like coming home.”
• The rooftop — where the band played their final public concert on Jan. 30, 1969 — still has its original railings intact.
• Four Beatles biopics are currently in production, making this a major moment for the band’s ongoing cultural resurgence.

Fifty-six years after John, Paul, George, and Ringo climbed onto a Mayfair rooftop and changed rock history forever, Beatles fans are finally getting inside the building. Apple Corps Ltd. announced Monday that it will open The Beatles at 3 Savile Row, the first official fan experience dedicated to the Fab Four, at the band’s historic London address in 2027.

The Mayfair location is about as sacred as Beatles geography gets. Number 3 Savile Row served as one of Apple Corps’ earliest headquarters in the 1960s, housed the studio where Let It Be was recorded, and — most famously — provided the rooftop stage for the band’s final public performance on January 30, 1969. That 42-minute concert, later immortalized in Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary series Get Back, has become one of the most mythologized moments in music history.

The attraction will span all seven floors of the building, offering fans access to never-before-seen material from Apple Corps’ extensive archives, rotating exhibitions, a fan store, and a recreation of the original studio where Let It Be was laid down. The crown jewel, though, is the rooftop itself — and Apple Corps CEO Tom Greene made sure to note one remarkable detail: “The rooftop where even the railings remain the same from that famous day in 1969.”

“We’re thrilled to bring Apple Corps back to its spiritual home and give The Beatles fans something truly special,” Greene said. “Every single day, fans are taking pictures of the outside of 3 Savile Row — but next year they can go in and explore all seven floors of the iconic building.”

Paul and Ringo React

Both surviving Beatles have already been back to take a look around, and their reactions say everything.

“It was such a trip to get back to 3 Savile Row recently and have a look around,” Paul McCartney said in a statement. “There are so many special memories within the walls, not to mention the rooftop. The team have put together some really impressive plans and I’m excited for people to see it when it’s ready.”

Ringo Starr kept it simple: “Wow, it’s like coming home.”

What Happened on That Rooftop

For anyone who needs a refresher — or just wants to feel it again — the January 1969 rooftop concert was equal parts spontaneous and historic. The Beatles, joined by keyboardist Billy Preston, played five new songs including “Get Back,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” and “Dig a Pony” as crowds gathered on the streets below and on neighboring rooftops. London’s Metropolitan Police eventually showed up in response to noise complaints and asked the band to turn it down. They obliged — briefly — then plugged back in to play “Get Back” one more time.

John Lennon’s last words into the microphone that day: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”

The concert appeared in the band’s 1970 documentary film Let It Be, and Jackson’s eight-hour Get Back series gave a whole new generation a front-row seat to the moment.

The Bigger Picture for Beatles Fans

The timing couldn’t be better. Interest in the Beatles is running at a fever pitch right now — four separate biopics are currently in production, and the 2023 AI-assisted release of “Now and Then” — billed as the band’s final song — reminded the world just how alive this catalog still feels.

The UK government has thrown its support behind the project too. Creative industries minister Ian Murray called it “huge news for fans of The Beatles across, not just the UK, but the world,” adding that it would “truly allow people to ‘Come Together’ and experience the band like never before at an iconic venue which holds so much history.”

The building sits just a short walk from Carnaby Street, another landmark of Swinging Sixties London, and Apple Corps has confirmed the attraction is planned as a long-term destination — not a limited run. An exact opening date hasn’t been set yet, but fans can sign up for updates at the official site.

Fifty-five years after those railings last shook with the sound of a Lennon guitar riff, they’re still standing. And soon, so will you — right next to them.

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