Lately, I've been going through some old notes I made and fleshing them out into coherent commentary. Last July, I listened to the Carpenters' version of "Ticket to Ride" and noticed that "free" in the line "He would never be free when I was around" is sung with a melisma (F Eb D), musically giving a sense of freedom because the word isn't constrained to a single pitch. I referenced the Beatles' original this morning and found that this feature is present there too.
As I've mentioned before, "Ticket to Ride" is in between A major and Ab major, so I'm a bit unsure of the specific notes, but - skewing towards A major - I think "free" in the Beatles' "She would never be free when I was around" is sung to the notes E D. The harmony part also has "free" sung to two pitches, but I couldn't determine what they are.
