Paul McCartney said he still talks to former Beatles bandmate George Harrison through a tree the musician gave him.

“George was very into horticulture, a really good gardener,” McCartney told host Mary Louise Kelly. “So he gave me a tree as a present. It’s a big fir tree, and it’s by my gate. As I was leaving my house this morning [December 11], I get out of the car, close the gate and look up at the tree and say, ‘Hi, George.’ There he is, growing strongly.”

McCartney added that he feels Harrison’s spirit present in the tree.

“It’s lovely. He gave it to me, so I just planted it,” McCartney told NPR. “But then, as the years go by, every time I look at it I go, ‘That’s the tree George gave me.’ George has sort of entered that tree for me. I hope he’s happy with that.”

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I drew poster of the new ‘now and then’ song. for the beatles girlies

Old Paul McCartney being haunted by his younger twink self and the ghost of George stripping is such a mood

Paul McCartney & John Lennon | August 1966

In 1965 [the Byrds] toured England and Paul invited us to his club, the Scotch of St James’s [sic]. He sent a limo to pick us up. He said he had been listening to our music. We were blown away. He took us for a ride through London in his Aston Martin, at great speed. He was really hip, he and John were so tight it was like one person at times. Unlike the Byrds, [where] Crosby would just leave you out to dry, the Beatles all defended each other to the hilt. If you criticised, say, George then they would all respond.

[—Roger McGuinn, in Paul McCartney: Now & Then, Tony Barrow and Robin Bextor]

[John and Paul] sort of had their own way of communicating. Hardly anything was spoken, they just knew what the other wanted or was getting at and they had the most amazing talent. […] Paul was an awesome musical presence. He was, like, ten feet tall with music and it was everything: folk, rock, musical hall, choral, it was all there. He was like a different animal with Lennon. When they were together they became something else, more than just the two of them together. That communication was incredible. It was like two high-speed computers just fizzing between each other.

[—Steve Miller, in Paul McCartney: Now & Then, Tony Barrow and Robin Bextor]

John Lennon recording “Tomorrow Never Knows”

George on Miami Beach in February 1964. Photograph by Paul McCartney.

GET BACK, Part II

Paul McCartney backstage at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, England | January 1965 © Leslie Bryce

Paul McCartney | 1966

20/11/1963: ABC Theatre, Ardwick, Manchester, UK.

Mike McCartney at home in Liverpool. Note the baby picture of him and Paul in the foreground. Undated (1960? 1961?)

The Beatles at the Avenida Palace Hotel in Barcelona, Spain | July 1965 © Joana Biarnés