Time of the Season

Has it ever happened to you that you remember a tune and couple of words of the song or the video or pictures you saw the song with, but you can't remember the name, the artist, lyrics and nothing more at all? And it bugs in your head so much that you want to find out which song it is at all cost, but no luck? It happens to me from time to time And some of them really bug me.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon last year, when I was wallowing on my couch watching TV. I started humming a tune of a song but all I can remember is couple of words - "who is" and "what is" and part of the tune, I didn't know if that was the beginning or the middle of a song. I remembered I had heard it very recently, couple of days before that on TV and also from some other source earlier. I starting thinking of all the places I could listen the the song from. Then I remembered I actually had asked someone what song and the artist it was. Which led me to the conclusion that I must have heard it first time on the TV and then asked someone about it. I started thinking of the possible TV shows' title songs. But nothing fit the tune or words I remembered. So the TV lead went nowhere but I firmly believed TV was the original source of that song for me.

I was into my this annoying search for a couple of hours and by then I had forgotten part of the tune. I started remembering few more words of the song. It went something like "whatis your" and "its the *something* of". I started proceeding on my other lead that I had learn't the name and artist of the song from someone. When I was ruling out all the people I knew, one by one, It just flashed (yeah, just like a light bulb) that it was with the guy I worked with. I was able to remember that I had asked him about the song when we went on a road trip couple of months ago.

I called him. He lives in Austin,TX. It was evening by then and he was in an airport waiting to catch his next flight. So I told him what remembered and I couldn't reproduce the tune that was in my head. He said I should be f***ing drunk and he doesn't know I am talking about. Pulling my hair out of my head for rest of the evening I remembered seeing some sort of visual /video with the song. Here was what I had -
1. a song I had originally heard on TV,
2. I had heard and asked my friend about the song on the road trip,
3. there was a visual associated with the song

Then, just like that, I remembered it was a TV commercial! Putting this together with number 2 (when he had played all the classic songs on the trip) led me conclude that it was an old song. I called him back again asking him to bring his song collection next time he comes to town. That whole week this thing kept on bugging me.

By this time I had forgotten the tune completely but I was sure it was a TV commercial and the commercial had green bubbles moving all over the TV screen, it had 401K written on bubbles. With that much information you would expect I would be able pull it off the internet. But no luck! Soon after that my friend gets me his collection. There were about 2000 classic songs and none of them organized. I copied all of his songs and listening to them on and off hoping that someday I could stumble upon the song. I did not have much luck with that lead either And I did what I always do best, Give it up!

Few months rolled by. I kept an eye on the commercials to watch out for the song when watching TV. One day I was out for lunch with my colleagues to our usual Pizza place. It was quite popular place among Techies in area and they played music at lunch time there. These lunches were usually good for networking with people in my field. So there were couple of new (older) guys for the lunch with us. As we were talking something serious about work then "the song" hits me "...its the time of the season..."!

I was about to jump out of the chair and scream "what's the name of the this song? what's the name of the this song?". But I controlled myself. Barely. The guys asked me if I was alright. I said I will tell them later and asked if anyone knew what that song was. The older guy said the name of the song and the artist. And then asked what was I so excited about (that pizza place is also well known among good looking women, that was the usual thing to get excited there). I just said I was searching for the damn song for sometime. They were surprised that I had even heard the song and not being old enough. First thing I did coming back to my place, was to search the collection I had gotten from my friend And there it was.

It was "Time of the Season" form Zombies. I later learned that it is one of the greatest chill-out songs of 60's. Later I saw the commercials too. It was a commercial for "Fidelity Investments". And I was right in that it had green bubbles moving all over the screen with 401K written on them. Apparently, the song has more history with TV shows.