25 or 6 to 4 Cover [CHICAGO]

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25 or 6 to 4 Cover [CHICAGO]
Another in my Quarantine Covers Series, Chicago’s Classic Hit, 25 or 6 to 4. Before Chicago was known for some 80’s Ballads, they had some very rockin’ and more intricate songs and arrangements. From their days as the Chicago Transit Authority, they had a tight band and Killer Tunes! Terry Kath was a killer guitar player, gone way too soon, and of course Peter Cetera & Robert Lamm were also great on their vocals and instruments. Plus, Killer Drums, Percussion and Horn Section. Hope you enjoy our version of 25 or 6 to 4!

“25 or 6 to 4” is a song written by American musician Robert Lamm, one of the founding members of the band Chicago. It was recorded in 1969 for their second album, Chicago, with Peter Cetera on lead vocals.[1]

Composition
In a 2013 interview, 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 band first rehearsed the song at the Whisky a Go Go.[2]

Lamm said 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 AM (twenty-five or [twenty-]six [minutes] to four [o’clock]).[3][4] 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.[5]

The song’s opening guitar riff has been compared to chord progressions and riffs in other songs. In the opinion of writer Melissa Locker:
…the opening guitar riff from Green Day’s ‘Brain Stew’ bears a striking similarity to the opening stanza of Chicago’s ’25 or 6 to 4.'[6]

LA Weekly’s music editor, Andy Hermann, names it “The Riff” and describes it as follows:
It’s a descending five-chord pattern, typically played as power chords over four bars, with the last two chords sharing the last bar. The most common variant of it goes from A minor to G to F sharp to F to E, although it can also be played as Am-G-D-F-E or even Am-G-D9-F♯-F-E…[7]

Hermann details the riff’s similarity to the chord progression in Led Zeppelin’s version of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” by Anne Bredon, which came out a year before “25 or 6 to 4”, and the similarity of that chord progression to one in George Harrison’s song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, which came out even earlier. He labels “Brain Stew”, released in 1996, as “derivative” by comparison to “25 or 6 to 4”.[7]

Original version
The original recording features an electric guitar solo using a wah-wah pedal by Chicago guitarist Terry Kath, and a lead vocal line in the Aeolian mode.[8]

The album was released in January 1970 and the song was edited and released as a single in June (omitting the second verse and most of the guitar solo), climbing to number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart[9][10] and number 7 on the UK Singles Chart.[11] It was the band’s first song to reach the top five in the US.[9] It has been included in numerous Chicago compilation albums. In 2015, Dave Swanson, writing for Ultimate Classic Rock, listed the song as number one on his top ten list of Chicago songs.[12] Classic Rock Review says the song is “one of the most indelible Chicago tunes”.[13] In 2019, Bobby Olivier and Andrew Unterberger, music critics for Billboard magazine, ranked the song number one on their list of “The 50 Best Chicago Songs”.[14] Guitar World rated “25 or 6 to 4” no. 22 for “greatest wah solos of all time.”

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0:00 – Intro
0:17 – Horn Parts Played on Guitar
0:30 – 1st Verse
0:56 – 1st Chorus
1:22 – 2nd Verse
1:49 – 2nd Chorus
2:02 – Chris GTR Solo 1
2:26 – Rod GTR Solo 1
2:54 – Chris GTR Solo 2
3:07 – Rod GTR Solo 2
3:20 – Horn Parts Played on Gutiar
3:33 – 3rd Verse
3:59 – 3rd Chorus
4:12 – Outro