Turn! Turn! Turn!

Terry Melcher again produced, at Columbia in Hollywood. Besides the title song, which runs 3:49, the album includes Lay Down Your Weary Tune, The Times They Are a-Changin', Satisfied Mind and Oh! Susannah. Set You Free This Time was issued as a single and reached number 63. The record went to number 17 in the United States and number 11 in Britain. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic judged it a disappointment next to the debut but still quite good.

Making the album

Sessions began at Columbia in Hollywood on 28 June 1965. The band tried Dylan's It's All Over Now, Baby Blue as a single and dropped it, and briefly considered The Times They Are a-Changin' before choosing Pete Seeger's song. There was friction in the studio. Crosby felt that McGuinn, Melcher and manager Jim Dickson were keeping his songs off the record, and his Stranger in a Strange Land and The Flower Bomb Song were turned away along with a Dino Valenti song. Dickson wanted to produce the band himself, and Melcher was dismissed once the album was finished.

Gene Clark wrote three songs, The World Turns All Around Her, If You're Gone and Set You Free This Time, the last of them on the 1965 English tour after a night out with Paul McCartney at the Scotch of St James. McGuinn and Melcher gave If You're Gone a droning, Gregorian-style harmony. McGuinn wrote It Won't Be Wrong with Harvey Gerst, and Wait and See with Crosby, which was Crosby's first writing credit on a Byrds album. He Was a Friend of Mine carries lyrics McGuinn added to a traditional song after the Kennedy assassination, and it is the first Byrds recording on which he plays acoustic guitar. Chris Hillman suggested Satisfied Mind, a 1955 country hit for Porter Wagoner, an early sign of the band's interest in country music. Oh! Susannah closes the record as a send-up arranged by McGuinn.

Dylan's Lay Down Your Weary Tune was an unreleased outtake that came to the band through his publisher. Dylan told McGuinn that until he heard it he had thought they were just another imitator, but that it had real feeling. Derek Taylor wrote the back cover notes, and Guy Webster's front cover photograph was nominated for a Grammy for best album cover.

Release and reception

Columbia issued it on 6 December 1965 as CL 2454 in mono and CS 9254 in stereo, and in Britain on 22 March 1966. It spent 40 weeks on the American chart and five on the British. Set You Free This Time, backed with It Won't Be Wrong, came out on 10 January 1966 and reached number 63. The title single had been released on 1 October 1965 with Clark's She Don't Care About Time on the B-side.

Robert Shelton of the New York Times found it not so strong as the first album but still an effective program of folk-rock. Billboard predicted it would soar up the LP charts. A 1996 Columbia/Legacy remaster added seven bonus tracks including She Don't Care About Time, The Day Walk (Never Before), Stranger in a Strange Land and It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.