Rod Argent, writer, Hammond L100 organ and backing vocals

Our first single, She’s Not There , was one of the first songs I wrote, when I was 18. It remained our only hit in the UK by the time we recorded our second album, Odessey and Oracle , in 1967 – this was only three years later but it felt like a lifetime. We’d recently signed to CBS and had been given £1,000, which even then was not a huge amount of money. We recorded pretty quickly in a few sessions spread over six months, producing ourselves for the first time.

Time of the Season was the last song I wrote for the album. I was sharing a flat with our bass player Chris White, and we were going to each other’s rooms and playing the different things we had. I said: “I think I’ve just written a song that could be a hit.”

The lyrics reflected the mood of the time.…