This sounds like it should have been a hit but it was never pushed as a single at the time. It was the B side to Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914) which is an experimental song and was a big surprise to the band that it was picked as the first single. Both are from the great album Odessey and Oracle in 1968. There are several songs on this album that could have been in the charts but Time of the Season was the only one that made it and it was a year after the album was released.
Bruce Eder of AllMusic gave the album five stars out of five, calling it “one of the flukiest (and best) albums of the 1960s, and one of the most enduring long-players to come out of the entire British psychedelic boom”.
On recording Odessey and Oracle….Rod Argent
“We had the chance of going in and putting things down in the way we wanted people to hear them and we had a new studio, we walked in just after The Beatles had walked out [after recording Sgt. Pepper]. We were the next band in. They’d left some of their instruments behind … I used John Lennon’s Mellotron, that’s why it’s all over Odessey and Oracle. We used some of their technological advances … we were using seven tracks, and that meant we could overdub for the first time. And it meant that when i played the piano part I could then overdub a Mellotron part, and it meant we could have a fuller sound on some of the songs and it means that at the moment the tour we’re doing with Odessey and Oracle it means we’re actually reproducing every note on the original record by having extra player with us as well.”
This Will Be A Year
The warmth of your love
Is like the warmth of the sun
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come
Don’t let go of my hand
Now darkness has gone
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come
And I won’t forget
The way you held me up when I was down
And I won’t forget the way you said,
“Darling I love you”
You gave me faith to go on
Now we’re there and we’ve only just begun
This will be our year
Took a long time to come
The warmth of your smile
Smile for me, little one
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come
You don’t have to worry
All your worried days are gone
This will be our year
Took a long time to come
And I won’t forget
The way you held me up when I was down
And I won’t forget the way you said,
“Darling I love you”
You gave me faith to go on
Now we’re there and we’ve only just begun
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come
Yeah we only just begun
Yeah this will be our year
Took a long time to come
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
I don’t think that I ever heard this before, thanks for sharing it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A great album – and song by one of the most overlooked bands in rock history. Highly recommended the box set Zombie Heaven- that has all their stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amazing song. They only had a short peak but they were as good as the mid 1960s Beatles for an album.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with that completely. This album holds up just as well.
Why they would release Butcher’s Tale first…the most noncommercial song on the album first is beyond me…not saying it isn’t good…just not as accessible as the others.
LikeLiked by 1 person