One Word Sunday is a blogging challenge hosted by Debbie Smyth at TravelWithIntent. This week’s challenge is “Time(s).”

I usually respond with a post based on a photo from my archives. Time is ultra important to travelers. We must make the time to travel. Air travelers operate on the airline’s schedule, which is subject to change for reasons beyond our control. Many photos in airports or on airplanes relate to time.

But this post features the song “Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers, an American soul and psychedelic band of the 1960s and 70s. The song was first released in 1966 and rereleased in 1967, turbulent times in America. Time Has Come was seen as a call to action by those protesting the Vietnam War and those involved in the fight for civil rights even though the song makes no direct reference to those movements.

The song was produced in multiple versions ranging in duration from two minutes and 45 seconds to just over 14 minutes. This is the 11-minute version from the Chambers Brothers 1967 album Time Has Come.

That is the version I’m familiar with from college days in the 1970s. In addition to its social message, the use of reverb and other special effects made “Time Has Come Today” a great song to listen to especially with stereo headphones that were a new phenomenon (to me anyway) then.

“Time Has Come Today” was a hit reaching No. 11 on the Billboard Top 100 charts. As evidence of the songs popularity, in January 1968, The Chambers Brothers performed a shortened version of it on the Ed Sullivan Show, an American network variety show that ran from 1948 to 1971. Acts that appeared on Ed Sullivan had “arrived” in terms of relevance in American culture.

Here is the two-minute version of “Time Has Come Today” that appeared on Ed Sullivan.

More than 50 years have slipped by since the song’s initial release. “Time Has Come Today” has been used in more than 100 movies and TV shows. Racial and social injustice still plague American society (and many others). It past damn time to get this right. Its not rocket science.

Time(s) was an excellent challenge. Join Debbie’s challenge. Next week the theme is “mobile.”