It's About Time

"Time Has Come Today" / The Chambers Brothers

Quick -- what day is today? (Day of the week, date of the month, whatever.) And how many days has it been since you last talked in person to anyone who isn't in your quarantine home pod? When did you last go to the grocery store? How long since you did laundry? How long since your last haircut (or coloring)? Was the meal you're currently digesting lunch or dinner, or a post-lunch/pre-dinner snack? Has it been 14 days (our coronavirus benchmark) since that last risky foray into unprotected society? Exactly how many weeks/months have you been in lockdown?

In this weird new reality, we operate in an elastic limbo of time -- days blend together, weeks disappear. Yet at the same time we hover over a relentless 24-hour news cycle. How have the Covid-19 numbers changed overnight? Which state is now the hotspot? What new outrageous thing has our Kleptocrat in Chief said or done? What has the Supreme Court weighed in on? What new hero has raised his/her voice? What new victim has been shot in cold blood? Which of our cultural icons has died today? (Me, I'm still grieving Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, but you could as easily be verklempt about John Prine, Ellis Marsalis, Bucky Pizzarelli, or any of many others.)

Pandemic Time. We joke about it on Facebook, but it's a real phenomenon. 

To comfort myself, I'm re-reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain -- hardly escapist reading, but perfect for right now. It's about tuberculosis patients quarantined in a clinic in the Alps on the eve of World War I. Day after day passes monotonously and yet swiftly; holidays succeed each other in surprising speed. And yet the patients are always marking time, with daily temperature charts (check our 14-day quarantine record-keeping) and the doctors' diagnoses/sentences of six months or ten months until they are cured.

With time on my mind, I offer you this 1968 track from the Chambers Brothers, Mississippi gospel singer brothers who, in the spirit of the 60s, ventured into folk and then psychedelia (perfect for these mind-altering times.) It's particularly fine late-night listening.

Hark ye to that timekeeper drummer (live, human, no drum machines here), the way he drives the track, alternately slowing down, speeding up, tick-tocking, vibrating, smashing down. Pick up, too, on the ominous special effects -- the cuckoo clock, the satellite-like guitar twiddles, the screams of the tormented, the cruel laughs of the tormentors. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

From the echo-chambered background vocals, to the Hendrix-like half-sung testifying of the verses, there's an edge of spookiness, a sense of history trembling in the balance. Social commentary creeps in ("The rules have changed today / I have no place to stay / I'm thinking about the subway"), but in the spirit of the 60s, it was all cool. "I've been crushed by a tumbling tide / And my soul's been psychedelicized." Open your mind to the possibilities, man.

 

It's mesmerizing without being boring; instrumental solos cascade and build, always heading somewhere. I'm on the edge of my seat, riding the drummer's tempo changes, waiting for the singer to step back in and take charge. And when he does, it's with a chuckle and a smile. He's navigating the changes, finding some kind of grace in the midst of apocalypse. Setting an example of how to surf time.

And in these days, when I'm feeling lost in time, sinking into this music track somehow lifts my soul. I hope it does the same for you.

Stay safe and be well....

"Time Has Come Today" /
The Chambers Brothers

File these guys in the No Easy Category category -- gospel singers (and really brothers) from Mississippi who got into the folk circuit, went electric with Bob Dylan, and brought a distinctive soul emphasis to their 1968 psychedelic hit "Time Has Come Today."

We've heard snippets of this mesmerizing song on movie soundtracks for years (I mean, c'mon, who has the patience to sit through the entire eleven minutes of this song?). But road-tripping this weekend (between my son's graduation and my own college reunion, I logged 764 miles), listening to Sirius Radio's 60s station, I finally sat through the whole thing, and you know what? It blew my mind.

Okay, let's address the elephant in the room. There is one white guy in this band -- drummer Brian Keenan, an English guy who started out playing with Manfred Mann. And I have to say, this brilliant track is totally anchored by the eerie tempo-shifting drumming.

The rest of the band, the four Chambers Brothers from Mississippi, had already signaled their intentions to move beyond the gospel circuit by moving to L.A. in the early 1960s, where they played at the Ash Grove and, with a little push from Pete Seeger, played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The next stop was probably inevitable: moving to New York City, which is round about when Keenan joined the band.

1968: That was a great year for rewriting all the rules. Sandwiched between the Summer of Love and Woodstock, 1968 found everybody scrambling out of those genre boxes, mixing folk and rock and soul and blues and gospel and jazz and whatever else you had to play. Our ears were open and our sensibilities were remarkably eclectic.  

In my (admittedly fuzzy) memories of this track from the time, I don't think I had any idea whether the musicians were black or white. Why would it matter?  It's not a song you should think about too deeply -- it's all about submitting to the experience, to the tempo changes, to the echo-chambered background vocals, to the Hendrix-like half-sung testifying of the verses. When it came on the radio, you just knew you were in for a spacey few minutes.

But put this up against other long-form singles of the time, like "Inna Gadda Da Vida" or the folky "Alice's Restaurant," and I think the Chambers Brothers more than hold their own. It's mesmerizing without being boring; the instrumental solos don't seem endless and repetitive; and, I don't know about you, but I feel pleasantly on the edge of my seat waiting for that timekeeper drummer to slow down or speed up.  There's an edge of spookiness, but it doesn't belabor the mind-blowing factor. Just submit to the (live, human, totally not drum-machined) beat, and go where it takes you.

Because, hey, wow man, why not?