refers to LSD-25 and 624 Quaalude
Nope.
As explained by the person who wrote it, Robert Lamm: " “I was living with a bunch of hippies up above Sunset Strip. One of the advantages of this particular house was that it was in the Hollywood Hills and I could look out over the city late at night. I wanted to try to describe the process of writing the song that I was writing. So, ‘waiting for the break of day, searching for something to say, flashing lights against the sky’ - there was a neon sign across the city. That song came from the fact that it was 25 or 6 to 4 a.m. in the morning when I looked at my watch - I was looking for a line to finish the chorus.”
Caused by LSD and 'ludes. 
Well, then, which was it? 25 or 6 to 4 a.m.? I’ve been wondering for decades…
I’m sorry, but those English words, in that order, make no sense to me at all. They are as clear with meaning as the original song lyrics, which is not at all.
“Should I try to do some more?”
Yeah, totally not about L.S.D. 25.
“Twenty-five [minutes] or [twenty-]six to four [A.M.].”
Why is it easier to believe it’s some sort of code than to believe what the songwriter says? Not every rock song ever is about drugs.
“The battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift, but that’s the way to bet it.”
Does anyone really know what time it is?
Right. A guy looking at an analog clock mentions that it might be 26 minutes to 4.
I realize that the song being about drugs is the much more complicated explanation, because no one wrote wink-wink-nudge-nudge lyrically ambiguous songs back then.
And no songwriter ever basked in the obfuscating explanation of what a song meant.
I don’t buy it. That’s all.
If you won’t believe the person who wrote the song, who would you believe?
nice
I don’t think it should be explained. That’s the kind of thing people used to ask Dylan, and he intentionally misdirected those whom he answered. I’d rather the songwriter said something hippy-dippy like: It means whatever you want it to mean. (Rather than try to explain it, that is.) Like when John Lennon claimed that Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was about a drawing his son made in school. Right. Better to not explain at all.
Anyway, isn’t 714 the quaalude number? 624 just doesn’t have that same ring to it.
Better not to open the thread at all then, I guess. 
Are you trying to say Joe Friday did 'ludes?
It was 0334 or 0335.
Does anybody really care?
He’s obviously lying. If he looked at his watch he would have first thought, going clockwise, that it was 26 to 4 and thus the lyric would be, “26 or 5 to 4.”
not really knowing Chicago, I finally got a reference in Existential Blues…