"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]
Writer Chuck Eddy includes the song in a list of examples of "pre-dub dub-metal",[11] and comments on its "feedback-drenched" sound.[12] Eddy names it "probably the most outlandish ball of rock-mucus ever expectorated: voluminous Blue Cheer boomthud quoting 'Little Drummer Boy', cuckoo clocks, tick-tocks, 'shroom-groomed cackles, echodrum hypnotics that beat everybody 'cept maybe Dr. John to the dub/acid-house game, plus some of the most despairing anxiety-of-displacement in the American songwrite archives, all about homeless and loveless gape-generation subway-strife."[13]
Earlier version
The original version of the song, hastily recorded in late 1966,[14][15] was rejected by Columbia.[16][17] 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.[15]
Album version
1967 released on the LP The Time Has Come - Columbia CK 63984–11:07, includes an extended "freak out" in the middle
Released single versions
1966 original version – Columbia 43816 - the original recording, 2:37 in length, which is completely different from the widely known 1968 "hit version".
1968 "hit version" #1 – Columbia 44414 – 3:05 edit of the LP version. Fades out at the beginning of the "A" chord instrumental break with no other edits within the track. The label does not refer to the album The Time Has Come.
1968 "hit version" #2 – Columbia 44414 – 4:45 edit. The beginning of the "A" chord instrumental break is overlapped with its ending, followed by the third-verse reprise. There are also several other edits within this version. The label now mentions the album The Time Has Come. (Some copies with the 4:45 version were mispressed with the 3:05 labels.)
Cover versions
Würm on the B-side of their 1982 "We're Off / I'm Dead / Time Has Come Today" 7" single.
German new-wave band Bluefield on their 1991 album Struggling in Darkness. The song was also included on the sampler Zillo's mystic sounds Vol. 3 in 1992.
Bootsy Collins, exclusively for the 2015 comedy-horror television series Ash vs Evil Dead, which played over the credits of season one's seventh episode, "Fire in the Hole".
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.
A shortened version was used as a theme song for the fourth season of Early Edition.
Theme song for the PBS series American Experience from 2009 to 2010. It has since been succeeded by a calm piano theme (with some string and wind instruments).
