The Turtles recorded their version in the Sunset Sound studio, with the newly arrived bassist Chip Douglas arranging the horns and backing vocals.

[6][7] Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, singers of the Turtles, were involved on various legal battles due to their attempts to copyright "Happy Together" against unauthorized broadcasts, notably with Sirius XM Radio.

[9] Gordon already had many of the lyrics in mind for "Happy Together" but the chorus of the song came to him at the Park Street Diner in Ayer, Massachusetts, after visiting his father.

[11][12] In 1965, Bonner and Gordon started to work with publishers Charles Koppelman and Don Rubin from the Koppelman/Rubin Associates, writing songs for artists selected by them.

[15][19] Lead vocalist Howard Kaylan mentions in his autobiography, and in the Turtles' documentary, that the group found "Happy Together" after spending some time to listen to demos submitted by publishing companies.

[20][10][nb 1] Volman remembers it slightly differently, saying that, between the sets of a Manhattan gig, Bonner and Gordon themselves asked the band if they needed material, and then subsequently sent some demos that included "Happy Together".

[13][23][19] During an interview with Grammy Awards, Howard Kaylan said that, when he heard it the first time, he considered the recording to be "terrible", but later understood that the rejection by other artists was due to the performance.

[24] Kaylan recalled that the demo consisted of "one guy (Gary Bonner) strumming an acoustic guitar while the other (Alan Gordon) sings in a bizarre falsetto to get a semblance of rhythm going.

[22][19] As with all their previous records, the band – Kaylan, Volman, guitarists Al Nichol and Jim Tucker, bassist Chip Douglas and drummer John Barbata – played on the recording of "Happy Together" (their independent label, White Whale, could not afford LA session musicians to augment or replace them like other artists on bigger labels[22][30]), while being accompanied by an orchestra of horns and woodwinds.

[19] Both Kaylan and Volman praised his arrangement, the former stating that "Chip knew what he wanted to hear and he actually heard in his head the blend of horns and voices.

[38][nb 4] Many listeners (such as Langerholc[38]) thought that the lyrics of "Happy Together" were about a couple in love with each other due to its cheery chorus and the title, but, according to historian James E. Perone, a closer reading in the lyrics ("imagine me and you", "if i should call you") reveals that the love expressed by the narrator is not reciprocated by the other person, with Perone stating that the relationship "is only in dreams, wishes, desires and the mind of the singer".

[44] O'Rourke observed that is the listener's option to determine if in the final line "We're happy together", the narrator conquered his beloved, "or if he’s just retreated into his fantasy world for good".

[45][46] To promote the single, the band members performed in a couple of shows, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in February.

[23] With Pons, they participated in a film shot in March that consisted of "the group running, jumping, rolling and mugging in a park in Los Angeles".

[55][56] The single, mainly distributed by London Recordings on other countries, became a Top 10 hit in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, and Spain.

Billboard magazine described "Happy Together" as a "groovy folk-oriented item" that could repeat the chart success of the Turtles' earlier hit single "It Ain't Me, Babe (also predicting that the song would reach the Top 20) and praised Joe Wissert's production.

[28] In his book, Sixties Rock, a Listener's Guide, Robert Santelli called the song "arguably one of the two or three greatest pop constructions with its intricate arrangement and great harmonies".

[68][46] Tom Breihan of Stereogum praised "Happy Together" for its instrumentation but felt that the Turtles were only capitalizing on Beatles and Beach Boys innovations to "put them in service of the sort of silly no-stakes love songs that those bands might’ve recorded a few years earlier in their career."

[28] Due to its subsequent popularity, in 1999, BMI named "Happy Together", with approximately five million performances on American radio, the 44th most-performed song in the United States of the 20th century,[6] placing it in the same league as "Yesterday" by the Beatles and "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel.

[7] Flo & Eddie, legal successors to the Turtles, filed a lawsuit in the New York Court of Appeals against Sirius XM Radio to establish common law copyright on their original recording of "Happy Together".

[72][73] On March 20, 2016, Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro released their single "Wolves of Winter", which originally featured the lyric "we have the chance to be happy together" in the pre-chorus, sung in a similar manner to the Turtles' recording.

[75] The romantic-drama Happy Together (1997) by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, takes its English title from the song, while a cover version by artist Danny Chung plays during the film's ending.

[citation needed] Jim Bessman reported for Billboard that the "key usage in the acclaimed movie" Adaptation is "as a means of juxtaposing a soundtrack song against the story's mood, à la 'As Time Goes By' in Casablanca".

It indicated to me that this thing had a life of its own—and that it was time for me to get off my butt and finish my solo album.A cover of the song was created by Canadian rock band Simple Plan for the 2003 film adaptation of Freaky Friday and the accompanying soundtrack.