The Byrds’ version is the reason the song is famous, and deservedly so. Roger (then Jim) McGuinn had already arranged it in a chamber-folk style for Judy Collins’ 1963 album Judy Collins 3 before the band rebuilt it as jangling folk-rock on a July 1965 tour. Producer Terry Melcher pushed them through days of sessions at Columbia’s Hollywood studios across September 1965; the single appeared on 1 October 1965 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 4 December. The only error in the popular account is chronological: they were at least the fourth act to put it out — fifth if you count Marlene Dietrich’s 1963 German-language single — not the first.