Ten Songs You May Not Know Were Covered: Ticket to Ride (#3)

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We're getting close to the end of the list of songs that were hits as covers...but generally aren't remembered. With today's song we enter into a new world completely. #3: Ticket to Ride I believe anyone who frequents the Music topic here could easily make a list of their ten favorite covers and ten least favorite covers of Beatles songs. "Yesterday" is one of the most-covered songs in history, and there have been great versions and horrible versions. That pretty much goes for all of the covers of Beatles songs. And that brings us to this. I guess it's disclaimer time. I love Karen Carpenter's voice. That woman could have sung the phone book and made it sound good. I don't care how smarmy some of their music was (this was back in the days when "pop" meant "easy listening" instead of "Madonna sound-alikes," which seems to be the case today). I have quite a few of those "easy listening" songs of theirs on my iPod. This is NOT one of them. Ill-conceived in my opinon, and even more poorly delivered (one of my least favorite things in the world is someone professional who sounds like they're missing the note the way Karen did when she sang "don't care" in the first chorus). The notion of taking this song and slowing it down to a ballad, to me, just fails on every level imaginable...despite the fact that the sad lyrics ("I think I'm gonna be sad, I think it's today") really are more suited for a slower song. The Carpenters' version was their first charting single, reaching the top 15 on the "Easy Listening" (now called "Adult Contemporary") Billboard chart and setting the stage for several classic songs to follow. Thankfully, most people, even Carpenters fans, have forgotten this hiccup in their career. Maybe it's just because I'm so used to the Beatles' version....or that they did it so well originally. Ticket to Ride Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney Originally recorded by the Beatles, 1965 Covered by the Carpenters, 1969 Don't eat before listening to this (I don't know...you might like it):