Cher’s First Top 40 Hit Found Her Battling The Byrds in 1965

How many artists can say they’ve enjoyed monumental success on the pop charts for four decades? Well, we know that Cher can. She’s navigated some slumps along the way while also dividing focus with her acting career. But the hits never stopped all the way.

The first of those hits came right after she became a household name thanks to a duet with Sonny Bono. And that first solo smash also proved that she could get the one-up on one of the most popular bands of the era.

Cher Covers Dylan

The timing couldn’t have been any better for Cher to launch her first album. Near the same time as the release of her solo debut, “I Got You Babe”, the duet that she’d done with her husband Sonny Bono, soared to the top of the pop charts.

Bono, who was helping to guide Cher’s career at that point, produced the record. He also nabbed A-list session players to bring the music to life. In terms of the style, the album echoed the folk rock that epitomized “I Got You Babe” and was also popping up all over the charts at that time.

If you were going to play folk rock, you needed to make sure the material was strong enough to handle the arrangements that put the lyrics and melody front and center. Unsurprisingly, three of the songs that Cher covered on her debut came from Bob Dylan. That included “All I Really Want To Do”, the title track and lead single of Cher’s 1965 album.

Two Versions at War

Bob Dylan had first performed “All I Really Want To Do” on his 1964 LP Another Side Of Bob Dylan. That was the record where Dylan mostly put aside topical material. Although he was still mostly in acoustic mode, he started writing more about relationships, occasionally with seriousness, occasionally with tongue in cheek.

“All I Really Want To Do” hewed closer to the latter variety. That album, as a whole, was catnip for aspiring folk rockers. (The Turtles, for example, had a huge hit with “It Ain’t Me, Babe.”) Cher certainly wasn’t the only one circling in on “All I Really Want To Do”.

At roughly the same time that Cher was planning her cover of the song, The Byrds were somewhere nearby in California, plotting their own version. You’ll recall that The Byrds had already established themselves as the premier band to cover Dylan. Their version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” went to No. 1 earlier that year. If you had been a betting person, you likely would have laid your money on the group to outperform Cher with “All I Really Want To Do”. And your budget would have suffered as a result.

Cher’s Triumph

Both Cher’s and The Byrds’ versions of “All I Really Want To Do” came out in June 1965. They were stylistically similar in that they both added chiming electric guitars to Dylan’s acoustic original. The Byrds added a different melodic part as a middle eight as the one distinguishing characteristic. In addition, they had the benefit of their wonderful vocal harmonies.

But there was something about Cher’s take on the lyrics, perhaps a bit of irreverent joyousness, that hit home with audiences. Her version of “All I Really Want To Do” easily outpaced The Byrds’ take in terms of sales. It ended up peaking at No. 15 on the pop charts.

In fact, The Byrds soon asked DJs to focus on the B-side, “Feel A Whole Lot Better”. They knew they just couldn’t compete with Cher. For the next four decades, many other artists and bands knew the feeling.

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