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The Time Has Come

[Anne Briggs]

The Time Has Come is the title track of Anne Briggs’ 1971 album, The Time Has Come. She noted:

I suppose this is just about the first song that I consciously wrote. It’s been recorded by a number of musicians and singers, and treated quite differently each time. Among those who have recorded it are Bert Jansch (the first), Alan Price, Alex Campbell and The Pentangle.
G string dropped a semitone.

Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn sang The Time Has Come in 1967 on their Fontana album Watch the Stars.

Sandy Denny recorded The Time Has Come in 1967 as a home demo that was included in 2010 on CD 12 (“The Early Home Demos”) of the Sandy Denny Box Set. She also recorded another song of Anne Briggs, Go Your Own Way Love, and wrote The Pond and the Stream for her.

Pentangle sang The Time Has Come in 1968 on their Transatlantic album Sweet Child. A live recording from their 2008 reunion tour was released in 2016 on their Topic CD Finale. This video shows them live on Norwegian TV in 1968:

John Smith sang The Time Has Come in 2018 on his CD Hummingbird.

Lyrics

Anne Briggs sings The Time Has Come

Oh, my babe, don’t you know
The time has come for me to go.
Tomorrow comes like yesterday
The autumn fades our love away.

Oh, my babe, don’t you know
The time has come for me to go.
Don’t you think of me no more?
I’m going to some foreign shore.

When I’m there maybe I’ll find
Some other young man pleasing to my mind.
Oh, my babe, why don’t you know
The time has come for me to go.
Tomorrow comes like yesterday
The autumn fades our love away.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jacques Evrard for correcting the lyrics.