The search for "Ticket To Ride"

General discussion about Pink Floyd.
TheLazenby
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The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by TheLazenby »

I'm determined to reach a conclusive answer about the version of "Ticket To Ride" at the end of the Dark Side Of The Moon. Judging by what we know so far...

* It's DEFINITELY "Ticket To Ride"; the melody is unmistakable
* It's from some point between 1965 (the Beatles' version) and 1973 (Dark Side's release)
* Judging by the very 'mod' sound of it, it seems to be late-mid-60's, I'm guessing 1965-1967

I've asked the members of the Beatles binary newsgroup to post any orchestral "Ticket To Ride"s that they have. So far, I've only gotten one in return, George Martin's version (which I read on a site once was actually the DSOTM version). I can definitely conclude that George Martin's version from the instrumental "Help!" soundtrack is NOT the Dark Side version. I think I have a Hollyridge Strings Beatles album around somewhere... I'll check to see if that has TTR on it.

The search continues...

EDIT: Nope, it's not on my album. But apparently, they DID to "Ticket To Ride" on their album 'The New Beatles Songbook'. That's the next place I should be looking.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by TheLazenby »

It's not the Hollyridge Strings version either. For a moment, I thought I had it... the Hollyridge version is pretty close. But it's still not the right one.

Does anyone know if this oddity is on *all* versions of the album, or just unique to the Shine On/20th anniversary remastered CDs?
Last edited by TheLazenby on Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by Duckboy »

i think its on everything except the vinyl and the SACD edition
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by Cowards »

I can't remember whether or not it was the vinyl version I heard it on. But I heard it sometime, and I have the 20th Anniversary CD and the vinyl, not sure which pressing though.

EDIT: Wiki says that I'm making it up. Well, this changes everything!

Or not.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by TheLazenby »

I think I checked the record once, and it was there. That was a long time ago though.

I don't have that copy anymore, but I do have the picture disc, so I suppose I could check that...
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by davidjay »

i'm pretty sure that its on the vinyl version. this has been discussed at length in an old thread. try searching for it and you may find some useful info.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by danielcaux »

One of the japanese 80's CD pressings didn't have it, don't remember which, I think it was the so called "black face" CD (it's that the same as the holy grail?), I'm not sure; the engineers folded one channel over the other to erase it on that master.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by jmr »

Duckboy wrote:i think its on everything except the vinyl and the SACD edition
I know for a fact that it's on the 30th anniversary SACD version... well, at least on the red book layer (the one that plays in regular CD players.)
Just for the purposes of this thread, I've taken the time to attempt isolating this mysterious version of Ticket To Ride from the SACD CD layer.
http://jmr.sitesled.com/eclipseticket.mp3 (38 second clip)
Since the song is most prominent in the 300-5000hz range (the 1-300hz range is dominated by the heart beats, and the >5000hz range is primarily noise), I only worked with that. I attempted to 'blur' out the beats to make it easier to hear the music, and finally, I applied a ton of noise reduction. It's not meant to be the best sounding, just easier to hear. It's still a little hard to discern in places, but it's certainly the best isolated version I've heard.

Odd little things I noticed:
-it seems to start on the heartbeat which is just an instant before the 'there is no dark side of the moon...' speech.
-while the heartbeat fades out, Ticket To Ride stays at a nearly constant volume, and doesn't fade until just before very end of the disc.

(hmmm... I wonder if it's on the quad mix DVDA bootleg... I shall check!)
EDIT: Nope. No trace of it whatsoever.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by bpmolder »

Maybe it wasn't a Beatles version. The song was covered at least twice between 1967 and 1970 by the Carpenters and Vanilla Fudge. Maybe it was one of those.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by Creek »

I have one of those gold "master" :? cds you can hear it on it...
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by my breakfast. »

bpmolder wrote:Maybe it wasn't a Beatles version. The song was covered at least twice between 1967 and 1970 by the Carpenters and Vanilla Fudge. Maybe it was one of those.
Its not the Vanilla Fudge version, its a proto sludge epic! I doubt its the Carpenters version, as I don't remember the string section ever playing the full melody like that... the Carpenters version also focussed on the "Think I'm going to be sad" refrain for the outro.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by TheLazenby »

What's odd about this... notice that any instrumentation for the line "and she don't care" is missing, as if there's a jump in the tape between the last "she's got a ticket to ride" and the beginning of the next verse.

It sounds to me like we're hearing a backing track... that violin doesn't seem to be meant as the focal point of the version. The melody of the chorus is simplified, to the point where it sounds strange and offbeat (to my ears at least).

I keep going back and forth between listening to various isolations of the Eclipse 'tiny music' and the Hollyridge Strings version... the DSOTM version almost seems like it could be an outtake of theirs. The version on the Hollyridge Strings album is different enough that it's definitely not the exact version in Eclipse, but it sounds similar enough that we could be hearing an artifact of their session tape, perhaps a rehearsal given the ramshackle nature of the DSOTM version.

Assuming the Hollyridge Strings recorded at Abbey Road (which I can't find any confirmation of) - Abbey Road Studios is known for keeping an archive of anything recorded in its walls, particularly if the band is well-known; pretty much every note the Beatles committed to tape there is safe in an archive somewhere. (Same with the sessions for Syd's third album, for better or worse...) But the Hollyridge Strings were a fly-by-night group who mainly sprouted out of the blue to put out Beatles tribute albums; and I'm fairly certain that by 1972 when "Dark Side" was recorded, they no longer existed, as their last album of fresh material seems to have been released a year earlier. So, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for the folks at Abbey Road to assume that no one would want the recorded mishaps of an obscure, defunct string group; and not wanting to waste tape, they plopped the much more notable Pink Floyd on top of them.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by bpmolder »

my breakfast. wrote:
bpmolder wrote:Maybe it wasn't a Beatles version. The song was covered at least twice between 1967 and 1970 by the Carpenters and Vanilla Fudge. Maybe it was one of those.
Its not the Vanilla Fudge version, its a proto sludge epic! I doubt its the Carpenters version, as I don't remember the string section ever playing the full melody like that... the Carpenters version also focussed on the "Think I'm going to be sad" refrain for the outro.
Well then I'm out of ideas. That was the only brainstorm I could come up with. :lol:

EDIT: But you know what? Tape bleed through would make sense. They have been known to erase masters and re-use them.
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by TheLazenby »

Also, as an addendum to my newly-posted spiel a couple posts back...

If I recall, Mabbett's "Complete Guide To The Music Of Pink Floyd" claims that TTR first appeared on the "Shine On"-era remastered CD, which we now know to be untrue; but on top of that, he states that the original UK CD has a different mix of "Eclipse" notable for an audible whisper at one point, and also for its lack of "Ticket To Ride".

Can anyone confirm this??
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Re: The search for "Ticket To Ride"

Post by bpmolder »

From what I have gathered, it's not present in the original vinyl at all. It wasn't until the CD pressings that this popped up. The original CD had it in the mix, as well as the Crazy Diamond version. After it was discovered on the first couple CD pressings, they remedied it by overlapping channels on subsequent remasters. The 5.1 mix also does not have it.

From what I have been studying about this, it seems to be a mastering error. Even some of the best studios and mastering houses in the world are bad for sound bleeding and radio frequency interference. The mastering equipment, if not filtered properly, can easily pick up radio stations and transfer the sound to the master. It's not an uncommon thing at all. It's also not uncommon for mastering sessions to bleed over into each other. Maybe there is an album of Beatles string arrangements that has the Eclipse heartbeat on it. Who knows?

As far as the version of Ticket To Ride goes, it could be any of a number of them. From what I have read, string arrangements of Beatles albums and song compilations were a dime a dozen in the UK.