Time of the Season


"Time of the Season" is a song by the British rock band the Zombies, featured on their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle. It was written by keyboard player Rod Argent and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in August 1967. Over a year after its original release, the track became a surprise hit in the United States, rising to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Cashbox chart, and has become one of the Zombies' most popular and recognizable songs.

Song information

Several other songs from Odessey and Oracle were released as singles prior to "Time of the Season". Columbia Records supported the album and its singles at the urging of new A&R representative Al Kooper. One of the singles issued on Columbia's Date label was the noncommercial-sounding "Butcher's Tale", which Columbia thought might catch on as an antiwar statement, at the time a popular trend. "Time of the Season" was released only at Kooper's urging, initially coupled with its original UK B-side, "I'll Call You Mine", without success. After previous singles flopped, Date re-released "Time of the Season" backed with another UK flop single, "Friends of Mine", and it made its breakthrough in early 1969, over a year after the band split up. It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in March, topped the Cashbox chart, and reached number one in Canada. It did not chart in the band's native Britain, despite being re-released twice, but it later found fame there with Rod Argent saying that it became "a classic in the UK, but it's never been a hit." In mid-1969, it peaked at number two on the South African hit parade.
The song extensively uses call-and-response vocals interweaved with the voice of lead singer Colin Blunstone and fast-paced psychedelic improvisation keyboards.
In 1998, Big Beat Records released a CD reissue of Odessey and Oracle containing both the original stereo and monoaural versions of "Time of the Season". It also featured a newly remixed alternate version containing instrumental backing underneath the vocals during the entire chorus. These instrumental backings had been mixed out on the original 1968 stereo and mono versions to create a cappella vocal sections. The outro is also different, with a different organ solo featuring only one organ, instead of the two interleaved organs in the original mix.
Milwaukee's Third Coast Daily.com called the song "something of a counterculture anthem".
In 2012, NME named the track the 35th-best song of the 1960s.

Use in pop culture

"Time of the Season" is frequently used in pop culture to represent the era of its release. It is featured in the films 1969, Awakenings, A Walk on the Moon, and Riding the Bullet, all of which depict 1969, The Conjuring, which depicts 1971, and in All the Money in the World, which depicts 1973. The Zombies and "Time of the Season", as well as "She's Not There", are intensively used in Thomas Vinterberg's Dear Wendy. The song was also featured in the South Park season 2 episode "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka" during a flashback to the Vietnam War.

Chart history

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Cover versions and samples

The song has been covered many times by other bands in recordings, including:
It has been sampled many times, including in 2005 on the Necro album The Sexorcist in the opening track "Who's Ya Daddy?"; in 2009 by Melanie Fiona in her single "Give It to Me Right"; in 2011 on the ScHoolboy Q album Setbacks in the bonus track "Rolling Stone", which features the rap supergroup Black Hippy; in the outro on Miguel's "Don't Look Back" from the 2012 album Kaleidoscope Dream; Eminem's 2013 album The Marshall Mathers LP 2, in "Rhyme or Reason"; and on Insane Clown Posse’s 2019 album Fearless Fred Fury, in “Low”.