I’ve always liked this song. I will admit I never heard the song until 1988 on a great tv series called “Almost Grown” that starred Tim Daly… that of course was canceled midway through the first season. It’s a psychedelic rock/soul song. There are four versions…one in 1966 and two trippier versions in 1968..different in length only…and the album version…I prefer the album version (11:06). Any song that uses the word…I guess it’s a word…”psychedelicized” has got my support.
This song has worked extremely well in films and on television as a soundtrack of the sixties. It’s powerful and punchy and doesn’t let up.
It was released in 1968 and peaked at #11 on the Billboard 100 and #9 in Canada. After listening to it I want to wear tie-dye and protest something…anything. The Chambers Brothers were from Mississippi and started out as a gospel act. They wrote this song after relocating to Los Angeles, where they rented a two-story house.
It was written by two of the four Chambers brothers, Joe and Willie. Joe wrote most of the lyrics after sitting in on a class at UCLA with Timothy Leary and taking LSD. Willie put the music together and contributed the line, “My soul has been psychedelicized.”
Below is the “brilliance” of record executives…in this case Clive Davis. Davis tried to forbid them to record the song. The following is Willie Chambers telling the story (its a bit long but important):
“After we signed with Columbia Records, there was a big party with all the food and booze and all this stuff. All the important people were there and we got to meet all of the head hogs and Clive was there. He was there for a couple of hours and he says, ‘Well, I must be going, I have other appointments.’ He immediately leans back in the door, ‘Oh, by the way, that song ‘Time Has Come Today’ that you guys do, we won’t be doing that. We won’t do that kind of s–t on this label.’
That was it, and he walks away. I looked at my brothers, and we were looking at each other like, ‘What the heck?’ And our producer [David Rubinson], he was in tears now – he was crying. He says, ‘I’ve waited my whole life to record this song, now he’s going to tell us we can’t record it. Why?’
A couple of days went by and our producer came by and said, ‘I don’t give a s–t what he says, we’re going to record that song. When we get our recording date, you guys show up an hour early, we’re going to go in the studio, we’re going to turn on the tape, we’re going to play it live, we’re going to do it like a live performance. We’re going to record it and whatever we get we’re going to have to live with it. We can’t play back, we can’t overdub, we can’t splice, we can’t fix something if there’s a mistake, we’re just going to have to live with it.’ He says, ‘I’m probably going to lose my job, but that’s how important it is to me to record this song.’
Later on, Joe and I went to Columbia Records to have a pow-wow with Mr. Davis to have him explain to us just why he thought we shouldn’t record this song. We didn’t have an appointment with him, we just showed up. We were six-feet-four tall, angry black guys. So, we walk in to the receptionist and we say, ‘We need to speak to Mr. Davis.’
So, we kind of forced our way into his office and we said to him, ‘Why can’t we record this song?’ He says, ‘It’s not the kind of music that black guys produce or play.’
Clive says, ‘You’re four black guys, you’re going to be sending up that stream into the world, ‘Time Has Come Today.’ It’s too profound of a statement for four black guys to be saying to the world.’
That was his reason. He says, ‘We’ll get a white artist to record the song, it’s not your kind of music.’ My brother Joe says, ‘What do you mean it’s not our kind of music? We wrote this.’
So, after having that conversation with him, we were ready to do whatever the producer said. We were going to record it anyway.
When we got our moment, we went in the studio and did it in one take. ‘Time Has Come Today’ was done in one take. There was no listening back – we couldn’t listen back. When we came to the end of it, we had no idea where it was going to go. Once we ended it, we shut down the machines and then we left the studio and came back at the time we were supposed to.
Clive Davis didn’t find out about it until it had been mixed, prepped and released. When he found out, he fired everybody he could. He fired our producer, I think he fired the guy that opened the door for us. He fired everybody that got involved with recording that song.”
The Ramones did a great cover of this song.
Time Has Come Today
Time has come today
Young hearts can go their way
Can’t put it off another day
I don’t care what others say
They say we don’t listen anyway
Time has come today
(Hey)
Oh
The rules have changed today (Hey)
I have no place to stay (Hey)
I’m thinking about the subway (Hey)
My love has flown away (Hey)
My tears have come and gone (Hey)
Oh my Lord, I have to roam (Hey)
I have no home (Hey)
I have no home (Hey)
Now the time has come (Time)
There’s no place to run (Time)
I might get burned up by the sun (Time)
But I had my fun (Time)
I’ve been loved and put aside (Time)
I’ve been crushed by the tumbling tide (Time)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time)
(Time)
Now the time has come (Time)
There are things to realize (Time)
Time has come today (Time)
Time has come today (Time)
Time [x11]
Oh
Now the time has come (Time)
There’s no place to run (Time)
I might get burned up by the sun (Time)
But I had my fun (Time)
I’ve been loved and put aside (Time)
I’ve been crushed by tumbling tide (Time)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time)
(Time)
Now the time has come (Time)
There are things to realize (Time)
Time has come today (Time)
Time has come today (Time)
Time [x4]
Yeah
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Thanks….I wish I could find the complete episodes…I forgot how many they made
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I know that 3 or 4 episodes never aired. The biggest problem with a network airing the series again is the copyright because of the music. That’s why we have never seen them in reruns.
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IMDb says 13 episodes. Dude. You found the British mini-series “Invasion: Earth.” How could you not find this show?
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Because it only played for 11 episodes and 3 were not aired. Tim Daly before Wings….it was a great show…my guess was it was expensive to make. They would have flashbacks to the 60s.
I wish I could find it.
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That would explain why a DVD hasn’t been produced…the music issue.
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Yea that is probably it. Ricky, my cousin sent me a link to one youtube episode but it’s in bad shape. Time Has Come Today is the one that I took from that show.
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At least with WKRP, there were enough seasons to produce but, the music was changed.
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Yea…I’m glad I have the original episodes with the songs intact. It came off of a VHS but it’s still good quality
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Lucky…
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I’ve always loved this song too
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Wow, I never knew that story. I hope all of those fired people landed on their feet and in better circumstances so they never had to look back. It’s an iconic song, for all of the right reasons.
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Clive Davis was usually pretty fair…for a label head….yea I didn’t like this
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I love a song that has a good story and this one has a great story. It didn’t happen that often that Clive Davis was wrong, but he certainly was in this case. The Ramones cover sounded a lot like the Chambers Brothers.
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I was just telling someone Davis was usually pretty good to the artists from the stories I’ve read but not in this case.
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He really missed the boat on this one.
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I like the long version better too. It’s got those long slowed down sections with all the trippy sounds and cowbell and more guitar and everything. It seems like they changed personnel for every album. One time I looked at the album covers and each one had different people. Sometimes there was four people and sometimes five or six and sometimes there were two white guys and two black guys, and sometimes two white guys and three black guys. And I never knew who were the real brothers. I think just two of them were really brothers. The album cover for this album has three black guys and two white guys i think.
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I did read where one left for gospel music….they did breakup in 71 and reformed in 74 with different members and continued. So yea it is very confusing. I read somewhere that they had 13 siblings in all. I’m trying to find that again.
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It’s also the best song ever that imitates a ticking clock.
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That it is! I always listen when this song comes on the air.
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Great backstory to a great song. I have been following your posts for a short time, but you never fail to bring back memories. My memories have been psychedelicized!
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Thank you for reading! Oh how I love that word!
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Prince uses the term “soul psychedelicide” in one of his songs.
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Good song and good story. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you who did it (honestly, I might have guessed Jimi Hendrix or some project he was with) but I recognize the song well – the 11 minute version. The hard rock station in toronto would play it regularly on a show of theirs called ‘Psychedelic Sunday’ in the 80s , maybe 90s. Davis comes across looking pretty foolish in this one!
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Yea…Clive was usually mostly fair with artists right? This one surprised me completely. I’ve read where many artists adored him….Janis being one. He screwed up here big time.
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This is one that is so right, especially for a one take effort. And yes, I love the way they say ‘my soul has been psychedelicized…’ is perfect. Joan Jett does a goodish version too, but the Chambers Brothers remains the best, IMHO.
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It has a lot of power compared to the other hippie type songs such as the “wear flowers in your hair” and songs of that ilk.
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I can’t remember when I first heard it. As far back as I can remember, I’ve known the 1968 version. I possibly could have heard it, early on, at my paternal uncle’s. He graduated in the early 70s.
This is interesting:
https://pophistorydig.com/topics/time-has-come-today-chambers-brothers-1968/
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Interesting link- in ’68 the world was on fire, change was in the air, music, politics, everywhere.
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Like Obbverse said…that year was on fire but some great music came out of it…great article.
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Max, the back story is shocking but sadly not surprising. Am SO GLAD they stood strong and made it happen. In a very cool bit of synchronicity, while I was out and about running errands this very song played on my Spotify favorites list, the long version. Such an anthemic piece of solid gold. I like The Ramones cover, but nobody can compare to The Chamber Brothers original. Glad you chose this one to feature today.
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Nice to see this song show up here. Underrated, and I think a lot of people hear bits and pieces of it and never know who did it. The backstory is amazing.
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It is underated and I never tire of this.
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Good stuff Max. My brother had a buddy who used to drive around in his Ford Cortina blasting this cut out of his 8 Track. Over and over again. I loved it then and still do.
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Great and really trippy tune! I had not heard of the back story before – wow, I guess getting on the opposite side of Clive Davis wasn’t a good thing. Dave is right, this could have been a Hendrix song.
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It could have been! Yes it really sums of the sixties really well.
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I like the back story of this kind of stuff as its stuff I have never heard! lol Almost Grown I do not recall that TV show but I will add 88 was a great year in music…
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Now this one…I didn’t find until 88! Yea the tv show was yanked as soon as you blinked your eyes.
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This song is a classic and Clive Davis is a bonehead. “Black people don’t do that kind of music” from a guy who probably broke his arm patting himself on the back for signing them. The same guy who had signed Sly & The Family Stone, and God knows Sly was doing “that kind of music.” And he was praised as some kind of a genius and is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame… what a maroon…
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Funny, not funny, how some of the music industry’s biggest, most successful producers and studio heads have occasionally gotten it very wrong.
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What is surprising is Davis usually was very good with artists…but not this time.
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