Time of the Season - Chelsea FC & Harvey Gunn Remix

Built around the bassline heard in the intro, this song has some very effective and unusual structural components that helped it endure. The bass riff is punctuated with a hand clap and the breathy "ahhhh" vocal. These elements add sonic texture during the verses, and also show up in the two interludes. And while most hit songs pound you with the chorus, this one doesn't. The full chorus - "It's the time of the season for loving..." takes just eight seconds and is repeated three times. That's just 24 seconds of chorus, but this minimalist approach gave the line tremendous impact, resonating with listeners at a time of social and political turmoil in America.

The band broke up in late 1967, shortly after recording the album. When the album was released in April 1968, it sold poorly, stalling on the US charts at #95 and making no impact in their native UK. The "Time Of The Season" single, however, became a huge hit in America even though the group had disbanded and couldn't support it. It sold over a million copies, peaking at #3 on March 29, 1969. With their newfound American success, band members Rod Argent, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy got the band back together, minus lead singer Colin Blunstone. This reunion was short lived, and by the end of 1969 The Zombies were once again dead. Blunstone went on to have a successful solo career, including a #15 UK hit in 1972 "Say You Don't Mind," and was the guest vocalist on Dave Stewart's (not the Eurythmics Dave Stewart) 1981 UK #13 cover of "What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted." Rod Argent formed the band Argent, which had a hit with "Hold Your Head Up" in 1972.

The Zombies keyboard player Rod Argent wrote this song. He said in The Guardian February 22, 2008: "'Time of the Season' was the last thing to be written (for the album). I remember thinking it sounded very commercial. One of my favorite 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." Argent added: "The album title's slightly high-flown, isn't it? As is the quote from The Tempest on the back. It was a very flowery time in all sorts of ways. Me and Chris (Chris White bassist and co-songwriter) shared a flat with a guy called Terry Quirk who was a very talented artist and he came up with this beautiful, florid cover that we adored. We didn't notice that the word odyssey was spelt wrongly, to our eternal embarrassment. For years I used to say, 'Oh that was intentional. It was a play on the word ode.' But I'm afraid it wasn't."