An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: Time Has Come Today
Written by Willie Chambers and Joseph Chambers
Produced by David Rubinson
Single, Columbia Records, 1967
My soul has been psychedelicized.
Some records feels so massive, so friggin' huge, that we can't imagine how that sonic tsunami could be contained by any physical medium. The track's palpable mojo bursts free from its grooves, untethered, conjuring the equivalent of cinematic Sensurround within our eager heads. It's larger than life. That description applies to the dynamic acid soul of "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers.
"Time Has Come Today" was released as a single the winter following the summer of love. It became a hit as 1967 became 1968, its epic lysergic a fiery prequel to the upheaval '68 would bring. The record is louder and heavier than the heavens, its clarion call of revelation and revolution only too fitting to hear from a group of four brothers (plus a non-brother drummer) raised on the Gospel.
1968 offered the promise and the threat of a nation and a world ready to burn. But even as everything seemed poised to tumble into the Stygian depths, the Chambers Brothers do not preach of destruction, nor sing the praises of Hell. We already know that the devil has no music to call his own. Not even in 1968. Not even today.
The Chambers Brothers evoke the apocalyptic in service of greater good. "Time Has Come Today" isn't the defiant call to arms of the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams," nor is it a feel-good joining of hands like, say, the Youngbloods' "Get Together." "Time Has Come Today" stands alone, its determination delivered at a volume that can leave a scar, its strength realized in choosing compassion over hate. TIME! It's a rock record. It's a soul record. 100 % on both counts, and it does not care if the math is fuzzy. The Chambers Brothers don't have time for such petty limitations.
The group first attempted the song in 1966. They returned to it for their 1967 album The Time Has Come, an eleven-minute rendition elasticized and psychedelicized by an extended musical freakgasm that quotes "The Little Drummer Boy," perhaps indicating that Christmastime has come today. An initial single edit sacrificed a little too much of the song's weight and presence. A subsequent single clocking in at a little under five minutes provides perfect balance. Perfect time. And a perfect time for love.
TIME!
You can argue that "Time Has Come Today" isn't specifically about love. At the rumbling dawn of 1968, "Time Has Come Today" could just as well be a ticking time bomb, or a countdown to civil rights, a looming deadline for resistance against the draft, a call to alter one's consciousness, or, I guess, just a freakout party tune. It's an insistent, even belligerent warning, an urgent command: Love. We'll fight for it if we have to. Young hearts can go their way. Can't put it off another day. The time has come.
The rules have changed today. Regrets. We've had a few. Knowing we can be tough and strong doesn't mean we will be tough and strong. In A Farewell To Arms, Hemingway writes that "the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." It seems a nice, hopeful quote. But then he adds, "But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
Unsentimental bastard, that Hemingway.
I don't care what others say. They think we don't listen anyway. With souls psychedelicized (or otherwise), love's power can bring heartbreak, and it can bring you down. But it can save you if the stars align. It's a dangerous, frightening creature that is worth its risk. Its potential reward is the very reason we suffer its cruelty.
Love. The time has come. You can feel it, in your soul. Its sound fills every pocket of the air around us. Its force lifts us, its rhythm moves us, its voice drives us. TIME! Love's power cannot be denied when its time has come.
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