Recorded at EMI Studios in London in February that year, the track marked a progression in the Beatles' work through the incorporation of drone and harder-sounding instrumentation relative to their previous releases.

[14] The sustained A chord over the verses creates an implied drone common in Indian music[15] and supports a melody that author Ian MacDonald terms "raga-like".

[17] In the view of musicologist Walter Everett, the latter section marks a progression on previous Beatles songs that similarly revisit aspects of a composition when ending with a coda.

In the case of "Ticket to Ride", the section consists of a repeated refrain similar to the last line of the chorus ("My baby don't care"), played over a constant A major chord and set to the double-time rhythm used in the bridge.

[14] According to MacDonald, the track's heavy sound may have been influenced by Lennon and George Harrison's first encounter with LSD, the precise date for which varies among Beatles biographers.

[23][24] McCartney said the title referred to "a British Railways ticket to the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight",[13] and Lennon said it described cards indicating a clean bill of health carried by Hamburg prostitutes in the 1960s.

[27] It was the band's first recording session since completing the Beatles for Sale album on 26 October 1964,[28] after which they had toured the UK and played a season of Christmas shows in London until mid-January.

[29] The session inaugurated what author Mark Lewisohn describes as "a more serious application in the recording studio" by the group, which included taping rehearsals of each song they worked on and concentrating on backing or rhythm tracks, after which they would overdub more detailed instrumental parts.

[32] Author Mark Hertsgaard highlights the idea for this riff and for Starr's "jagged, whack-and-jump" drum pattern as examples of McCartney's increasing importance as the Beatles' musical director.

[38] A contemporary news report stated that the Beatles were due to promote the single on television shows such as Top of the Pops and Thank Your Lucky Stars, and that the band were forming an independent production company with their producer, George Martin, which would earn them a more favourable financial return on their recordings.

The episode was part of the serial The Chase and sees the Doctor using a time–space machine in the future to observe historical figures such as William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln and the Beatles.

[40][nb 1] In addition to their television promotion, the group performed the song during their last session for BBC Radio, on 26 May,[37] which was broadcast as The Beatles (Invite You to Take a Ticket to Ride).

[49] The US single's face label stated that the A-side was from the forthcoming United Artists release Eight Arms to Hold You, which was the original title of the Beatles' second film,[50] directed by Richard Lester.

[67] Against a backdrop of oversized tickets, the Beatles are shown miming to the song, with Starr standing at his drum kit and the other band members sitting in director's chairs.

"[71] MacDonald describes it as "psychologically deeper than anything the Beatles had recorded before ... extraordinary for its time – massive with chiming electric guitars, weighty rhythm, and rumbling floor tom-toms", and he views the production as a signal of the band's next major change of musical direction, with "Tomorrow Never Knows" in April 1966.

[73] Writing for Mojo in 2002, musician and journalist Bob Stanley said the track was "where moptop Beatlemania ends and [the Beatles]' weightless, ageless legend begins".

for BBC Music, David Quantick includes "Ticket to Ride" among the album's "flashes of brilliance" and describes it as "the song that saw The Beatles take on The Kinks, the Stones and The Who at their own, more rocky game".

[78] In 2009, the staff of PopMatters ranked "Ticket to Ride" at number 10 in their list of the 25 "Classic" Beatles tracks, which they defined as "not necessarily the 'best songs'" by the band, but those "through which (perhaps) we might gain the deepest appreciation for their popular genius".

"[88] As arranged by Richard Carpenter, the song became the plaint of a castoff lover, with the opening line: "I think I'm gonna be sad", being sung repeatedly as the track fades.

The musicians on the recording were Karen Carpenter (lead and backing vocals, drums), Richard Carpenter (backing vocals, piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, orchestration), Joe Osborn (bass guitar), David Duke (French horn), Herb Alpert (shaker) and uncredited contributors on bell tree and tubular bells.

[92] Brian Wilson appropriated part of the melody and vocal intonation from "Ticket to Ride" into the Beach Boys' song "Girl Don't Tell Me".

[95] Mezzo-soprano singer Cathy Berberian opened her 1967 album Beatles Arias with a baroque interpretation of "Ticket to Ride" arranged by Luciano Berio.

[96] Late the previous year, Berberian had surprised her Carnegie Hall concert audience by performing this and two other well-known Beatles songs – a gesture that musicologist Kate Meehan cites as reflecting the band's elevated status among many classical musicians and composers from mid 1965 onwards.

[102] The 5th Dimension included "Ticket to Ride" on The Magic Garden,[103] an album that, according to Ken Shane of Popdose, "tells the story of a love affair from its rapturous beginning, through trials and tribulations to its end, and beyond".

[104] "Ticket to Ride" was also covered by the Bee Gees,[8] whose version appeared on their limited-release rarities compilation Inception/Nostalgia (1970),[106] and by the New Seekers, who combined it in a medley with "Georgy Girl" for their 1972 UK album We'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.