'The Years Just Stripped Back': Paul McCartney's Last Moments With George Harrison Were 'Lovely'
The music world suffered a great tragedy on November 29, 2001, when George Harrison died at just 58 years old. The lead guitarist of the Beatles, Harrison is still one of the most influential musicians in modern music, but to Paul McCartney, he was so much more. As McCartney told Uncut, "He was my little baby brother." Just days before Harrison died, McCartney went to visit his former bandmate one last time. The two weren't as close as they had been some 40 years prior, but the love was still there and, as McCartney explained, "it was lovely, really lovely, and the years just stripped back."
When McCartney and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr visited him in New York, Harrison was dying of cancer. The three men who had shared an experience that no one else could ever truly understand talked of old times, having a few laughs and shedding a few tears. Harrison, having spent the last year traveling to clinics from Minnesota to Switzerland to New York in the hopes that the disease could be stopped, complained about the constant travel, wishing that he could just stay in one place and rest. McCartney called back to their shared childhood in Liverpool, suggesting, 'We should go to Speke Hall.' And he's going, 'Oh, that'd be great...'"
Sadly, the two never got to revisit their old stomping grounds together. When Harrison died, a visibly shaken McCartney spoke to the press who were camped outside his home, asking that the media respect Harrison's son, Dhani, and his wife, Olivia's, privacy. "I'm just privileged to have known him, and I love him like he's my brother," he said.
Source: yahoo.com/Derek Faraci
