It was released in 1965 as the band's second single, following their successful cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe".
[8] The lyrics served as a message of defiance against societal norms and a call for freedom for personal expression.
[5] Turtles vocalist Howard Kaylan recalled that the band first turned down Sloan's song "Eve of Destruction", which became a number 1 hit in the U.S. for Barry McGuire, recognizing that, with its uncompromising message, "You just couldn't make a statement like that and ever work again."
[9] In his book 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music, Andrew Grant Jackson identifies it as part of a "subgenre" of protest songs that emerged during 1965, in which musicians railed against "oppressive conformity itself" rather than political issues.
[10] He adds that, in a cultural climate influenced by mass media, hallucinogenic drugs, and the introduction of the contraceptive pill, this and contemporary songs by artists such as Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, the Animals, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who "chronicled and propelled a social reformation as the old world forged its uneasy synthesis with the new".