1 Beach Boys Song Knocked The Beatles’ ‘Ticket to Ride’ Off the No. 1 Spot
Paul McCartney revealed his thoughts on The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride.” The song topped the chart in the United States. Subsequently, one of The Beach Boys’ songs replaced “Ticket to Ride” at No. 1.
What Paul McCartney thought of The Beatles’ ‘Ticket to Ride’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed the origin of The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride.” “We wrote the melody together; you can hear on the record, John’s taking the melody and I’m singing harmony with it,” he recalled. “We’d often work those out as we wrote them. Because John sang it, you might have to give him 60 percent of it.”
Paul revealed what he thought of “Ticket to Ride.” “It was pretty much a work job that turned out quite well,” he said. “I think the interesting thing was a crazy ending: instead of ending like the previous verse, we changed the tempo.”
The Beatles’ song was dethroned by The Beach Boys’ ‘Help Me, Rhonda’
According to The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, “Ticket to Ride” was knocked off the top of the chart by The Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda.” During a 2011 interview with Goldmine, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson discussed the latter song. “We did two versions of ‘Help Me, Rhonda,'” he recalled. “We did one with the ukulele and we did one with guitars. We chose to use the guitar version.”
The Beach Boys’ Al Jardine performed “Help Me, Rhonda.” “I heard myself singing lead on it originally and then I turned it over to Al,” Wilson recalled. “I produced The Beach Boys so I decided who would sing lead. I just had a sixth sense about who should sing what songs. Some of the songs I wrote specifically for Mike [Love], Al, and Carl [Wilson] to sing.”
How ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘Help Me, Rhonda’ performed on the charts in the United States
“Ticket to Ride” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week. It remained on the chart for 11 weeks in total. The Beatles released “Ticket to Ride” on the album Help! The album was No. 1 for nine of its 46 weeks on the Billboard 200.
“Help Me, Rhonda” was similarly popular. The track was No. 1 for two of its 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys initially released the song on the album The Beach Boys Today! before re-recording it for the album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!).
The version from the latter album became a single. Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200, staying on the chart for 33 weeks.
“Ticket to Ride” and “Help Me, Rhonda” are both classic songs — even if the former outperformed the latter.
