Tune In, Get Shocked: Iconic Songs With Surprising Backstories

7. Ticket To Ride - The Beatles

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The Beatles are singing about a girl they adore, who has a ticket for some kind of transportation to depart town, hence this classic seems really simple. proper? Error. Actually, the backstory of this song is rather funny. John Lennon apparently came up with the phrase "ticket to ride" to describe street prostitutes on Hamburg, Germany. The girls' card said they had a clean bill of health; it was rather literally their ticket to ride. You have to credit the Beatles. They were musical geniuses, as is well known, but it was quite the challenge to translate a ridiculous, invented word into a love song about a running away lover. This discovery gives the song more intricacy since it highlights the Beatles' talent to include several interpretations into their songs. A rough slang phrase turned into a poetic metaphor for a departing lover shows their ability to create songs appealing to a broad audience while keeping a secret, edgy undertext. A major component of the Beatles' extraordinary success and ongoing influence was their duality in songwriting: the ability to produce financially appealing but artistically sophisticated music. It also captures the band's early years in Hamburg, when they were exposed to the darker sides of life that would later subtly influence their music. From its beginnings to its last form, the song's development is an amazing illustration of how creators could get inspiration from unlikely places and turn it into something totally fresh and globally relevant.