Ticket to Ride Single Review

[Actorman]

It's quite possible that:

1. Richard chose the shorter version because it's the most different.

Honestly, if there was a question about which version to use, I hope Richard would have used this rationale. The only people that this sort of minutiae matters to are the hardcore fans like us. The casual fans aren't going to care especially for a b-side most have probably never heard before anyway. Since most of us have every one of these songs already (most likely 3, 4, 5 or more times), it would make sense for Richard to use the less common version that we may not have while still remaining accurate to the concept of the collection. It provides a (tiny) bit more incentive for us to re-re-re-re-rebuy 95% of the content. I only bought this set to get "Santa" and "Occupants." Hearing the alternate "Parade" right off the bat was a really nice surprise as I was unaware the single of that song was different.

So, I guess "Ticket to Ride"/"Your Wonderful Parade" wasn't part of the Japanese Single Box? I always assumed it was.

 

[Harry]

No, in Japan they issued the stereo "Ticket To Ride" back with "All I Can Do."

 

[ScottyB]

Now & Then hurt them in terms of singles. The oldies medley took up the space of four songs. "Yesterday Once More" was brilliant and "Sing" had already been a hit....they needed to deliver one or two more from that album, but the medley wouldn't work (too long and needed to be bookended by "Yesterday Once More"), and the four remaining tracks ("This Masquerade", "Heather", "Jambalaya"and "I Can't Make Music") weren't singles material.

So they had to fall back and punt with "Top Of The World" and "I Won't Last A Day Without You".

I had always heard that This Masquerade was considered, but it was abandoned due to the fact that the running time was too long for radio, and couldn't have been edited properly. However, the Carpenters' version to this song is far more superior to George Benson's top 10 version 3 years later.

 

[ScottyB]

In Rick Henry's 2014 book "Carpenters : Album by Album (Song By Song), he made it a point to mention that Your Wonderful Parade was actually the first single. Knowing that this is the B-Side to Ticket To Ride, could this be just an error...was Your Wonderful Parade the actual first single...or is there no basis to this statement at all?

 

[Harry]

could this be just an error...was Your Wonderful Parade the actual first single...

See our discussion in the PBS thread.

 

[Another Son]

I particularly like the 1969 single mix of 'Ticket to Ride'. I like the shorter keyboard intro, (although I like the extended piano intro that appears on the LP version, as well).

I prefer Karen's original 1969 vocal for 'Ticket to Ride', over the re-recorded 1973 vocal. The 1969 take sounds a lot more raw, genuine and 'real'.

I haven't been able to get the TV pledge Complete Singles CD set but happened to find a copy of the original 'Ticket to Ride' single in a garage sale or second-hand record store some years ago.