How The Zombies came back to life after ‘Time of the Season’
By 1968, The Zombies were dead. After breaking through during the British Invasion of the mid-1960s, the band realised they were competing with a horde of bands following in The Beatles’ footsteps. That’s when The Zombies became one of the first groups to embrace psychedelia in earnest, crafting their masterpiece Odessey and Oracle throughout the summer and fall of 1967.
A major decline in live appearances caused the band to break up just a month after finishing the album’s recording sessions. Odessey and Oracle was not a success in the United States, but musician Al Kooper convinced Columbia Records to release ‘Time of the Season’ as a single. Without a band to promote the album or song, ‘Time of the Season’ initially went nowhere. But after a year of being available, the song started to become a hit in the summer of 1969, eventually peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
“‘Time of the Season’ was the last thing to be written (for the album),” keyboardist and songwriter Rod Argent told The Guardian in 2008. “I remember thinking it sounded very commercial. One of my favourite records was George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime;’ we used to do a version of it when we started out. The words in the verse – ‘What’s your name? Who’s your daddy? Is he rich like me?’ – were an affectionate nod in that direction.”
“It was written in the morning before we went into the studio in the afternoon, and I kind of struggled on the melody,” singer Colin Blunstone told SongFacts in 2015. “Rod and I had quite a heated discussion – he being in the control room and me singing the song – and we were just doing it through my headphones. Because it had only just been written, I was struggling with the melody. It makes me laugh, because at the same time I’m singing, ‘It’s the time of the season for loving,’ we’re really going at one another.”
Although ‘Time of the Season’ wouldn’t become a hit until 1969, The Zombies regrouped in 1969 (minus Blunstone) to try and record a new album. When those sessions fell apart, The Zombies officially called it quits. When Columbia requested that the band once again reform to capitalise off the successor ‘Time of the Season’, Argent and White declined, opting to form the band Argent instead. A number of different groups toured as “The Zombies” throughout the late 1960s, with one iteration featuring future ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard.
Blunstone and White briefly came back together as The Zombies in 1989 for one album, but Argent and Blunstone wouldn’t reunite until 1999. While performing at a benefit concert for jazz musician John Dankworth that year, Argent spotted Blunstone in the audience and invited him onstage. The following year, the pair toured as The Zombies, finally able to take in the appreciation and influence that had started with ‘Time of the Season’.
Check out ‘Time of the Season’ down below.
