“A ticket to ride” – from the Beatles to Celine Dion to primary politics and LOLdogs…

THE FAMOUS BEATLES LYRIC: “She’s got a ticket to ride, but she don’t care.”        The Beatles        The well-known line from the chorus of their 1965 song “Ticket to Ride,” featured in their movie HELP!        Like many Beatles songs, “Ticket to Ride” is officially credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney but was primarily written by one of them (in this case Lennon). The lyrics tell the story of a guy who’s “gonna be sad” because his girlfriend is dumping him and “going away.” It’s a bit unclear what her “ticket to ride” refers to. It could be a ticket on some form of public transportation. It could allude to her relationship with the guy, a “ride” she no longer cares about.        According to many websites and books about the Beatles, Lennon once suggested in his typically cheeky (and often tongue-in-cheek) fashion that he coined the phrase when the band was playing in Hamburg, Germany in the early 1960s. The local prostitutes there had to get regular medical checkups. Those who passed were given a card confirming they had no venereal disease — which Lennon said he dubbed “a ticket to ride.” Another theory in Beatles lore is that “ticket to ride” was a pun about the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. One of McCartney’s cousins ran a bar there that he and Lennon visited together, after buying a ticket on the British Railways train to Ryde.

CELINE'S INSPIRING VARIATION: “It’s important to open your eyes in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and ask two questions: ‘Are you dead, or do you have a ticket to ride?’...If you’re alive, have a good day. Because today is the most important day of your life.”        Celine Dion        Canadian musical star        Comment to the press in September 2015 about the how she tried to deal with the fact that her husband and manager René Angélil was gravely ill with throat cancer. Celine and René used their tickets to ride together every day until he passed away on January 14, 2016.

A PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY TICKET TO NOWHERE: “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’re in the hunt!...I’d say third place is a ticket to ride, ladies and gentleman! Hello, South Carolina!”        Jon Huntsman         The former Governor of Utah who ran as a Republican presidential candidate in 2012         Comment in a speech on the night of January 10, 2012, after taking third place in New Hampshire’s Republican primary        Huntsman’s use of “ticket to ride” was his attempt at a clever sound bite suggesting that he had the momentum needed to continue his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in the upcoming South Carolina primary election. Several days later, when polls showed Mitt Romney would likely beat him by a wide margin, Huntsman dropped out of the Republican primary race before the Palmetto State’s primary was held.

STEPHEN COLBERT’S QUIP ABOUT HUNTSMAN: “Yes, he’s got a ticket to ride and we don’t care.”        Stephen Colbert         Former host the Comedy Channel’s Colbert Report TV show         Spoofing Huntsman’s reference to the Beatles’ song on the January 11, 2012 episode of the Colbert Report

A PUZZLER FOR DEEP THINKERS: “If she’s got a ticket to ride, why don’t she care? Why did she buy it in the first place?”         Blogger “Quincy the Wolf”         In one of the “Deep Thoughts” posted in his online journal

A NOT TOO DEEP (BUT VERY CUTE) LOLDOG: “SHE’S GOT A CHICKEN TO RIDE AND SHE DON’T CARE”         Caption on an ihasahotdog.com photo

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