Song Anatomy ● '25 Or 6 To 4' - Chicago

CHICAGO / Reprise Records 1997 Publicity Photo - credit: Marina Chavez / IVOX MEDIA collection

Song Anatomy ● '25 Or 6 To 4' - Chicago

The Song● 25 Or 6 To 4

Writer● Robert Lamm

Producers● James William Guercio

Recorded● August 1969 in New York and Hollywood, California

Released● 1970

Players●
:: Peter Cetera -- vocals, bass

:: Terry Kath -- guitar, vocals

:: Robert Lamm -- keyboards, vocals

:: Danny Seraphine -- drums, vocals

:: Lee Loughnane -- trumpet, vocals

:: James Pankow -- trombone, vocals

:: Walt Parazaider -- saxophone, vocals

Album● Chicago II (Columbia, 1970)

Chicago II ● Chicago

Chicago (retroactively known as Chicago II) is the second studio album by Chicago, released in January 1970, on Columbia Records. Like their debut album, Chicago Transit Authority, this was a double album. It was their first album under the name Chicago (the band's prior name, Chicago Transit Authority, was changed due to a threatened lawsuit from the actual mass-transit operator bearing the same name) and the first to use the now ubiquitous cursive Chicago logo on the cover.

The song "25 Or 6 To 4" was the second single from Chicago II and Chicago's first Top Five hit, peaking at Number Four on the Billboard Hot 100. The song reached Number Seven on the U.K. pop chart, and the Chicago II album peaked at Number Four on the Billboard 200 chart.

Chicago II's liner notes had a defiantly political edge. The album was dedicated "to the people of the revolution... and the revolution in all its forms." The band first rehearsed the song at the Whisky a Go Go.

Keyboardist Robert Lamm said he composed "25 or 6 to 4" on a twelve-string guitar with only ten strings—it was missing the two low E strings—and that he wrote the lyrics in one day. The song is about trying to write a song in the middle of the night. The song's title is the time at which the song is set: 25 or 26 minutes before 4 a.m., phrased as, "twenty-five or [twenty-]six [minutes] to four [o’clock]," (i.e. 03:34 or 03:35). Because of the unique phrasing of the song's title, "25 or 6 to 4" has been interpreted to mean everything from a quantity of illicit drugs to the name of a famous person in code, but Lamm said that "25 Or 6 To 4" is "just a reference to a time of day. The song is about writing a song. It's not mystical."

Chicago formed in 1967, originally calling themselves the Big Thing, then Chicago Transit Authority. They dropped the "Transit Authority" after their first album in 1969.

One of the first rock groups to incorporate brass instruments, Chicago carried on a friendly rivalry with colleagues in bands such as Blood, Sweat & Tears. Although Blood, Sweat & Tears' members claimed they came first, Chicago was actually formed at least five months earlier.

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