Music Appreciation

JohnnyRingo

(19,555 posts) Tue Jan 28, 2025, 09:46 AM Tuesday

The clock on the wall says it's 25 or 26 minutes to four.

The hit song about nothing.

In 1969 Keyboard player Robert Lamm, founding member of the ensemble band Chicago, wrote a melody he knew would be a hit.

Unable to come up with lyrics to match the song's hook he spent hours suffering writer's block. Late that night he just started rhyming things he saw in the studio. The song is about penning a song at 3:34 or 3:35 in the morning.

Searching for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Dancing lights against the sky
Giving up, I close my eyes
Sitting cross-legged on the floor
25 or six to four

Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should have tried to do some more
25 or six to four

Feeling like I ought to sleep
Spinning room is sinking deep
Searching for something to say
Waiting for the break of day
25 or six to four
25 or six to four

5 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

The clock on the wall says it's 25 or 26 minutes to four. (Original Post) JohnnyRingo Tuesday OP

Thank you! I have wondered what that title meant ... LSparkle Tuesday #1

In my calliow youth EYESORE 9001 Tuesday #2

Playing on Long Island with orders to Vietnam .. Summer of '70. Bo Zarts Tuesday #3

A rock band with a horn section. Prairie_Seagull Tuesday #4

Given The Circumstances... ProfessorGAC Tuesday #5

LSparkle

(11,884 posts)

1. Thank you! I have wondered what that title meant ...

Reply to JohnnyRingo (Original post)

Tue Jan 28, 2025, 09:51 AM

Tuesday

Since I first heard that song on the jukebox in my junior high cafetorium in 1970.

EYESORE 9001

(27,735 posts)

2. In my calliow youth

Reply to JohnnyRingo (Original post)

Tue Jan 28, 2025, 10:08 AM

Tuesday

I imagined that the subject was a guy putting the moves on a girl, getting frustrated by time slipping away from him.

Should have tried to do some more…

Of course, it’s not about that, but that how I interpreted it then.

Bo Zarts

(25,813 posts)

3. Playing on Long Island with orders to Vietnam .. Summer of '70.

Reply to JohnnyRingo (Original post)

Tue Jan 28, 2025, 10:31 AM

Tuesday

I can't hear that song without thinking of fishing at Montauk Point or clam digging in the Great Bay while on long weekend leaves from Ft. Devens, Massachusetts. I was in a special missions course at Ft. Devens after flight school, with several of my flight school classmates, and we only worked two or three days a week. Then my flight school buddy (and roomy) and a couple of us would road trip to Seaford, Long Island, where his mom lived.

We crammed as much as possible into those Summer days. Our report date to Davis Station-MACV Saigon was 30 September 1970.

We listened to "25 or 6 to 4" and other Chicago tunes many, many times in those last days of innocence. But I never, ever figured out what it meant until this post.

Prairie_Seagull

(3,904 posts)

4. A rock band with a horn section.

Reply to JohnnyRingo (Original post)

Tue Jan 28, 2025, 11:18 AM

Tuesday

Wore the grooves off this LP and how about that hair. Those were the days.

ProfessorGAC

(71,311 posts)

5. Given The Circumstances...

Reply to JohnnyRingo (Original post)

Tue Jan 28, 2025, 03:14 PM

Tuesday

...the lyrics are actually pretty good!
Lyrics about not being to come up with lyrics. I like it.

Reply to this discussion