On this date in 1965 The Beatles Ticket to Ride was released. 10 things you might not know about the song:
It was the first Beatles song to be over 3 minutes long and the first song to feature McCartney on lead guitar.
The song on the B side is Yes It Is.
It was the Beatles' seventh consecutive number 1 hit in the United Kingdom and their third consecutive number 1 hit in the United States.
The song featured in the film Help! Which came out later that year. The American press release abut the single said the song was from the United Artists release Eight Arms To Hold You. Which was the working title of Help!
The song is about a girl who is leaving the guy singing the song, riding out of his life on some form of public transport. However, there have been suggestions of other meanings. One is that “Ride” is actually “Ryde”, the town on the Isle of Wight, which John and Paul were in the habit of visiting because Paul had a cousin who ran a bar there. A less savoury suggestion is that it was inspired by sex workers in Hamburg who had to have regular health checks and would be given a card, or “ticket” to say they didn’t have any nasty diseases.
As with most hit singles at the time, Ticket to Ride was featured on an episode of Top of the Pops, but also typical of the times, the BBC didn’t archive the episode and it was lost. However, a short excerpt appears in another famous BBC programme, Doctor Who, where it appears on TV as part of a time travel story.
In Stephen King's 1977 novel The Shining, a supernatural Big Band ensemble plays a swing version of the song at The Overlook Hotel.
The Carpenters had a minor hit with a cover version in 1969. As the song was being sung by a woman, Karen Carpenter, the lyrics changed to “He’s got a ticket to ride”.
On some versions of Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side Of The Moon, a brief excerpt of an orchestral version of Ticket To Ride appears at the end of the final track, Eclipse.
According to John Lennon, Ticket to Ride was “one of the earliest heavy-metal records made". He made this statement a few days before he was assassinated.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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