Songs in the Key of Me: Ticket to Ride

Reflections on one of the songs that shaped who I was becoming—even when I wasn’t listening closely.

By LONNIE KING

I don’t remember the first time I heard the Beatles’ Ticket to Ride, but I was definitely too young to understand it.

The only thing I knew about love was that you were supposed to tell your mom and grandmas that you felt that way about them… whatever that meant.

I didn’t know what it meant to lose someone. And I certainly didn’t know the kind of sadness that creeps in when you realize something beautiful isn’t coming back.

But I liked the song anyway.

It wasn’t the message that stuck with me back then—it was the musicality. That drum pattern. The jangly guitars. The way Lennon and McCartney’s voices twisted around each other in harmony. There was something confident, even cool, about it. The lyrics—she’s got a ticket to ride and she don’t care—sounded bold. Defiant. Almost carefree.

In fact, as part of the bridge, John and Paul harmonize:

I don’t know why she’s riding so high
She ought to think twice, she ought to do right by me
Before she gets to saying goodbye
She ought to think twice, she ought to do right by me

“She ought to think twice.” Today, that might be interpreted as a mild threat.  Before she decides to leave, she had better be prepared for the consequences of her decision.

So, even among the self-professed sadness, there is male bravado.  And maybe that’s how I understood it at the time: not as heartbreak, but as an attempt at swagger.

🎧 The Beatles – “Ticket to Ride” (1965)
Upbeat, jangly, confident—the version that first caught my ear, but not yet my heart.

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It was the early 1970s before I would become acquainted with the Beatles and this song. And it was an era where musical styles were heavily segmented—tribal, almost. You had your rock guys. Your country guys. Your soul and funk guys. Your Top 40 kids. And you didn’t cross the lines without a cost.

Although they had recently split up and pop rock music had evolved a bit, you could maybe like the Beatles and still be okay. But you definitely didn’t tell your school buddies that you also liked the Carpenters. That was a credibility killer. A guilty pleasure best kept to yourself.

So, I kept it to myself.

Even though I knew, deep down, that Karen Carpenter’s voice was something special. (She is still, in my mind, one of the purest vocalists to ever grace the Earth.)

Even though her version of Ticket to Ride moved me in a way the Beatles’ version never had. I just didn’t know how to admit that—to others, or maybe even to myself.

It seems ridiculous now. But back then, it felt real. And it’s funny how the desire for acceptance and inclusion will make you pretend to be something—or someone—you’re not.

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Karen Carpenter slowed the song down to something uncomfortably intimate. Gone was the rhythm-driven urgency of the Beatles’ take. In its place was a quiet ache. The same lyrics—I think I’m gonna be sad / I think it’s today—felt heavier, more vulnerable. It wasn’t just a breakup song. It was a grief song. A recognition song.

And, instead of sticking with the line in the bridge, “He ought to think twice,” she (or someone) made the decision to repeat, “He ought to do right, he ought to do right by me.”  It removed any sense of false bravado from the lyrics and turned it into a plea for her guy to do the ‘right thing’ and stay.

By then, I’d begun to understand what that kind of sadness meant. I hadn’t seen long-term relationships fade. I had not watched people walk away. But there moments in my teen years where I’d experienced the helplessness of knowing you can’t make someone care and can’t fix what’s slipping through your hands.

And suddenly, the line, “(S)he’s got a ticket to ride and (s)he don’t care,” didn’t sound bold at all. It sounded devastating.

🎧 The Carpenters – “Ticket to Ride” (1969)
Slower, aching, emotionally raw—the version that eventually caught my soul.

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Richard Carpenter has said he rearranged the song to let Karen sing it with more emotional clarity, using her lower register to bring out the melancholy behind the words. She wasn’t trying to imitate the Beatles. She was unearthing something they’d only hinted at. Something quieter. Sadder. Truer, maybe.

And it’s hard not to hear those lines through the lens of what we now know about Karen—her struggles with mental health and disordered eating, her tragic death at 32. When she sings I think I’m gonna be sad, it lands differently. It feels like more than a cover. It feels like a confession.

John Lennon reportedly once told her she had one of the best voices he’d ever heard. And I believe him. Because when she sang this song, it wasn’t about pop charts or clever hooks. It was about the ache that lingers when you realize someone’s leaving, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

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I’ve thought a lot about what that song taught me—what both versions taught me.

That sometimes, people leave.  When you’re a guy, you absorb the pain in a different way—at least in front of other guys.  But that’s not better, and perhaps not remotely healthy.

Sometimes, love dies. Or slips away. Or changes shape so drastically you don’t recognize it anymore.

And sometimes, all you can do is be sad about it.

That’s not weakness. That’s not failure. That’s grief. And grief, for all its heaviness, means you cared. It means something mattered.

You don’t have to turn it into a lesson or a comeback story. You don’t have to force yourself to be okay before you’re ready.

You just can’t let it consume you.

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That’s the kind of power and influence music can have on you—if you choose to let it.  For whatever reason, I always did.  Maybe nothing in my life has influenced me as much as music has.

The music didn’t change.  But it changed me.

And maybe that’s what Songs in the Key of Me is really about—not just the soundtrack of my life, but the moments I didn’t realize I was being shaped by what I heard… until the words finally made sense.