"Time Has Come Today" | ||||
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![]() Cover of the 1968 French single | ||||
Single by The Chambers Brothers | ||||
from the album The Time Has Come | ||||
B-side |
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Released | December 1967 | |||
Recorded | August 1967 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 2:37 (original single version) 3:05 (hit single version #1) 4:45 (hit single version #2) 11:06 (LP version) | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Songwriter(s) |
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Producer(s) | David Rubinson | |||
The Chambers Brothers singles chronology | ||||
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The Chambers Brothers singles chronology | ||||
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"Time Has Come Today" is a hit single by the American psychedelic soul group the Chambers Brothers, written by Willie & Joe Chambers. The song was recorded and released as a single in 1966 by Columbia Records.[1] It was then featured on the album The Time Has Come in November 1967, and released again as a single in December 1967. The 1967 single was a Top 10 near-miss in America, spending five weeks at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.[2] In Canada, the song reached No. 9.[3] It is now considered one of the landmark rock songs of the psychedelic era.[4]
The song has been described as psychedelic rock,[5][6] psychedelic soul[7][8] and acid rock,[9] and features a fuzz guitar twinned with a clean one.[10] Various other effects were employed in its recording and production, including the alternate striking of two cow bells producing a "tick-tock" sound, warped throughout most of the song by reverb, echo and changes in tempo. The long version quotes several bars from "The Little Drummer Boy" at 5:40.
Writer Chuck Eddy includes the song in a list of examples of "pre-dub dub metal".[11]
The original version of the song, hastily recorded in late 1966,[12][13] was rejected by Columbia.[14][15] Instead, the more orthodox single "All Strung Out Over You" b/w "Falling In Love" (Columbia 4-43957) was released on December 19, 1966, and became a regional hit. The success of "All Strung Out Over You" gave them the opportunity to re-record "The Time Has Come Today" in 1967.[13]
The song has appeared in many films. Director Hal Ashby used the full 11-minute track as the backdrop to the climactic scene when Captain Robert Hyde (Bruce Dern) "comes home" to an unfaithful wife (Jane Fonda) in the 1978 Academy Award–winning film Coming Home.
It has also been used in the following films:[19]
The song has also appeared in the following television episodes:[19]
In TV commercials:
Anthony Bourdain said, in 2010, that this song "saved his life".[20]
The song was also featured in the trailer for the 1995 film Kiss of Death and the 2017 science fiction film Geostorm.