Time of the Season vs. Happy Together

Happy Together.

"Time of the Season" is a great song, but because it's one of those songs movies use to say
THIS PART OF THE MOVIE IS SET IN 1969 AD
so it just reminds me of Robin Williams driving vegetative people around in Awakenings, por ejemplo.

"Happy Together" is used in movies to say
THESE TWO OR MORE CHARACTERS ARE "HAPPY TOGETHER"
ie in Ernest Goes to Camp. So, the question is, do you like a datestamp of the late 1960s, or do you like states of happiness set in any modern year?

'time of the season' for the click-putcha-ahh rhythm

I'd have a hard time choosing between "Cell 44" and "Happy Together," but the Turtles win this one easy for me.

happy together is a song by and for the brain dead, time of the season ftw x1m

whats yr name / whos yr daddy / is he rich like me

o sry happy together did u just shit yr striped pants

I'm on my way to the morgue now--thanks for the heads-up.

pull the plug 4 sure

"Happy Together", partially for Wong Kar-Wai associations, partially because straight-up pure pop.

TOTS is swell, but carries a whole bunch of layer of unnecessary associations courtesy of the media. Plus it's harder to dance to.

Mind you, Zombies, on the whole, superior to Turtles, at least in my mind.

We need 999,999 more votes for "Happy Together," at which point we can pool our malfunctioning brains and fold a piece of paper.

Yeah - it'll be good to finally have peers.

Happy Together.

Happy Together" is used in movies to say THESE TWO OR MORE CHARACTERS ARE "HAPPY TOGETHER" ie in Ernest Goes to Camp.

I don't know how easy it is to find anymore--I tried today, for a gift, and couldn't--but my favorite use of "Happy Together" in a movie is in Heart Like a Wheel, the Shirley Muldowney bio. It's a scene at the racetrack, I think the first time that Shirley meets Connie Kalitta. There's another great scene with "Turn, Turn, Turn"--I may be mixing the two up.

The song has been featured in many movies, including 1970's The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, 1983's Heart Like A Wheel, 1987's Making Mr. Right, 1987's Ernest Goes to Camp, 1989's Happy Together, 1990's The Naked Gun, 1994's Muriel's Wedding, 1997's Happy Together, 2000's Sorted, 2002's Adaptation., 2002's Cherish, 2002's S1m0ne,2002's Bubble Boy, 2003's Freaky Friday featuring a cover by Simple Plan, 2004's Ma Mère, 2005's Imagine Me and You, 2006's documentary Blindsight, 2007's The Simpsons Movie, 2008's 27 Dresses, and 2009's The Stepfather. Frank Alamo's French cover of the song was featured in the 2010 movie Get Him To The Greek and Scared Shrekless.

I can't believe there was a movie called Scared Shrekless.

turtles pretty easily

i love happy together

it's all sinister and plodding in the verse, then bursts into this magical wonderland of pure (imagined?) joy. then right back into the deep verse. everything is future tense--"When you're with me, baby the skies'll be blue / For all my life"... hasn't happened yet, though. then at the end, there isn't even energy left to form words, just ba, ba, ba. do they actually end up happy together? does it matter, with such a blissful melody? i dunno. it was the perfect karaoke song for me one night early into a beautiful but doomed relationship. i always get chills when i hear it.

"Time Of The Season". Would have been a tighter match if Turtles' contribution had been the brilliant "Elenore".

Howard Kaylan was a REALLY good singer.

Sure, I love The Turtles but I love The Zombies even more. Yet the last two Turtles singles were really, really, really good (the other one being "You Showed Me".

The worst part of "Time of the Season", imo, is the part where they sing those words! I adore the rest of the song. I love "Happy Together" as well, without any equivalent disappointing sections, so I'll go with that.

^^^^ that exactly. Though there are tons of other Zombie songs that would win this for me, no contest.

LOL at you all seriously discussing this. I was started this poll to troll the Sgt. Peppers/Odyssey & Oracle poll.

Hey, the chorus is great! Wonderful vocal harmonies.

yeah, wonderful vocal harmonies, i guess. But the point is that the verses are so slinky and sexy, and the chorus comes out of nowhere and it's like "NEVERMIND, I'M A DORK!"

The chorus might have been longer, but it's still great.
The verses lack some of the psych twee qualities that the rest of the album has, so it's great to have them in the chorus at least.

ice cr?m OTM

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Happy Together is kind of perfect.

if I had never heard these songs before and didn't have to deal w/ the mental associations, I'd think 'happy together' was some great lost 60s gem, but 'time of the season', damn, massive. feels like they fit a 10 minute song in less than 4 minutes. would anyone who didn't speak english guess that this was a love song? it could just as easily be a song about killing someone. 'who's your daddy? is he rich like me?' is probably the darkest line you'll ever hear on oldies radio station.

^^^my man

Seriously, Time of the Season is way more hefty and intense... I think people are just letting their Turtles love blind them.

I just think of Happy Together as a stupid bland song used in every stupid bland movie to depict stupid bland Hollywood "love."

feel like this is a litmus test to see if u r a cynic or a romantic at <3

picking turtles because what the fuck can't a man appreciate the oboe or English horn or whatever that is in one of the verses

zombies is def a cooler song I will grant that

Happy Together - as finely tuned a pop song as you'll encounter. So I'm opting for that. And I'm a big fan of dancing.

"time of the season", strictly for the choruses, the click-putcha-ahh. so dreamy, sexy, spooky and great, one of my favorite moments in 60s pop, miles above anything else the zombies or turtles ever did. song as whole is reduced slightly by the sugary chorus, but the drop from the vocal harmonies at the end of the chorus back into the verse rhythm is stunning every time around. surprised at the turtles landslide itt, but immediately sub-surprised by my initial surprise: the ceaselessly giving gift of ILM.

feel like this is a litmus test to see if u r a cynic or a romantic at <3

yes. the cynic surrenders discernment and unironically embraces kitsch. turtles ftw.
meanwhile, the romantic insists on seduction, an allure shrouded in darkness. zombies ftw.

Contenderizier, you prove yourself time and again the most perspicacious poster on this board atm.

This, I have to confess, does linger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCt0Ce8MQI

Happy Together would have been better paired up against Bus Stop by the Hollies.

Time of the Season is a perfectly formed yet sublimely vague rock music nugget. There is something about the sound when put with those sly lyrics that to me can be taken in so many ways. I don't know what the song is about exactly, but it definitely inspires imagery to me. Whiter Shade of Pale also has a similarly great dreamyness that is also really perfectly vague.

unironically embraces kitsch

OK, kitsch because it's a little show-tuney?

what's your name?
who's your daddy?
is he rich like me?

I think people are just letting their Turtles love blind them.

Turtles had a lot of really, really great songs. But I have never thought of "Happy Together" as one of them. "Elenore" was brilliant though.

Both phenomenal songs but Happy Together for its eerie creepiness wins. Even the faux-happy chorus is unsettling in its obsessive lyrics

And wtf at it being described by some ITT as a love song its an obsessive fantasy from the POV of a wannabe lover

I think my impression of "Happy Together" is partly shaped by the fact that for 20 years + I knew no other song using that tune, than a Norwegian novelty song about how horrible the Swedes are. :)

xxp: many years ago, I heard a "Happy Together" parody that made explicit the underlying eerie creepiness: "I can't see me stalkin' nobody but you, for all your life..."

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ehh I disagree but I can deal w/ that

the result that is

weird. posters made it seem like there'd be a landslide for "happy together". lurkers OTM.

I prefer the Zombies as a band, but "Happy Together" is much better than "Time Of The Season". If it had been "HT" vs "She's Not There", now that would be a headscratcher.

who's your daddy? is he rich like me?

the line isn't "[did] he raise you rich like me?" i swear there are three syllables in the space where apparently everyone else hears two.

that's because you're hearing two different vocal lines intersecting

it's the call and response. but the line is definitely "is he rich like me"

weird. i mean i guess i'm wrong because everyone hears "is he rich like me?" but i've heard this song about 8,000 times in my life and i've always heard it the other way.

Missed this thread but unquestionably TOtS: absolute perfect pop song vs annoyingly shrill twee anthem.

i missed it too. both great songs. both have slinky sexy whispery verses and big bombastic choruses, so they actually go together. i would've voted ToTS though, dude is one of my favorite singers and the organ solo is pretty sick.

both have slinky sexy whispery verses and big bombastic choruses

This is true, but one leans more heavily on the former and the other leans more heavily on the latter.

I prefer the Zombies as a band, but "Happy Together" is much better than "Time Of The Season". If it had been "HT" vs "She's Not There", now that would be a headscratcher.

WTF. "She's Not There" is a great song, but the "Odessey & Oracle" album is still so high above early Zombies.

whats yr name / whos yr daddy / is he rich like me

o sry happy together did u just shit yr striped pants

― ice cr?m, Sunday, December 26, 2010 5:36 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

lmao

I don't hear that big of a gap between "Tell Her No" and Odessey and Oracle. Obviously, there was some stylistic evolution, but I don't think they're that far apart in any technical sense.

the chords are more advanced

lol flopson

Time of the Season" is a great song, but because it's one of those songs movies use to say
THIS PART OF THE MOVIE IS SET IN 1969 AD
so it just reminds me of Robin Williams driving vegetative people around in Awakenings, por ejemplo.

"Happy Together" is used in movies to say
THESE TWO OR MORE CHARACTERS ARE "HAPPY TOGETHER"
ie in Ernest Goes to Camp. So, the question is, do you like a datestamp of the late 1960s, or do you like states of happiness set in any modern year?

― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Sunday, December 26, 2010 4:15 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

This is one of the greatest posts in ILX history.

On which songs are the chords more advanced than "Tell Her No?"

geirjoke

This poll is a great representation of ILM's duality. On one side is the folks that melt to a hipster groove (can you say "omm-chk-ahh") and on the other side is unadulterated pop song perfection. So obviously the more hipster sounding song won.

can you say oom-chk-ahh

wtf is a "hipster groove"

can you say oom-chk-ahh

― flopson

oom-chk-ahh vs BA BA BA BA BABABABA BABA BA, BA BA BA BAAAAAAAAA

the question is can you picture go go girls dancing to 'time of the season' while doing the finger-scissors move over their eyes?

yes but i am very imaginative

i thought they were both some corny-ass bullshit when I started the poll.

Suggest flog

otm

and i've always thought you were boring and a little sour. xp

i can see how someone might think "happy together" is corny (even though i would disagree). i don't see how anyone could hear "time of the season" as corny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_GNqKrZkYs

idk I know polyandry is illegal but sometimes I think I would marry Flo and Eddie, only knowing them from their voices

(trying to pretend I have never seen a photo of them as I say that)

and i've always thought you were boring and a little sour. xp

― enfuque (Matt P), Tuesday, January 11, 2011 5:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

O_O

I had no idea!

I don't hear that big of a gap between "Tell Her No" and Odessey and Oracle.

The gap between "Tell Her No" and "Odessey and Oracle" is roughly like the gap between "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Sgt. Pepper".

The songwriting ideas are roughly the same, but the latter have more detailed and creative arrangements, a wider range of instruments, and probably a slightly less obvious R&B influence.

Much as I love Odessey, it's a strange, slight little album whose brightest moments feel kind of unfinished. Care of Cell 44, in point, is a wonderful tune that somehow seems to lack closure - there's something missing from it. Don't get me wrong, I'd even argue that the sparseness of Odessey is one of the reasons it's so delightful (like Kraftwerk's Radioactivity). It's almost a series of sketches or well-realised demoes that don't really compare to Time Of The Season, Tell Her No and She's Not There, all of which are fully-fledged classic '60s pop singles. I'd even venture to say the latter song is one of the most perfectly crafted songs of the 20th century, whereas Odessey's songs are arguably more interesting in concept and execution.