Okay, I’m being VERY picky, but somebody’s got to say it: SDSTAFF Songbird’s take on “25 or 6 to 4” seems to be very much on the money - EXCEPT for the small fact that “25 or (2)6 minutes to 4 a.m.” would NOT be “3:35 or 3:36 a.m.” - they would in fact be 3:35 or 3:34 a.m., respectively.
Again, sorry, but someone was going to bring it up, I wanted to be the first.
Damn. Beat me to it.
Dangit you guys, here I was all proud of myself for being so perceptive. Then I was beat to report it not once, but twice.
Well, Gazoo (and lissener), you know, “timing is everything”. Like in Real Estate. Or is that comedy? I always thought the key to comedy was “location, location, location”. Well, whatever. No wonder I don’t have a career in real estate or comedy…
Then all that’s left for anyone else to say is:
Welcome to the SDBD Message Board!
Please provide a link to the column you are responding to.
In this case, it’s the “Cecil’s Mailbag” entitled What does the Chicago lyric “25 or 6 to 4” mean?.
The SDBD Message Board is actually just down the road a piece: hang a right at Google, you can’t miss it, it’s right near that big red barn…
I guess not all of us can be Arnold Winkelreid, and most of us shouldn’t try.
(I hope I didn’t mess up the URL, too.)
SDBD = Straight Dope Behavior Disordered Message Board?
More’s the pity. I’ve always dreamed of living in a world inhabited by my clones.
It must be nice to have a dream that isn’t shared by anyone else in the entire world! 
So how come Songbird never posts on the SDMB? I want her to be a moderator! I’ve always pictured her as a tall, stunningly beautiful woman with quick, graceful avian movements, a colorful feathery crest on her head, and a thrilling yet throaty mezzo-soprano.
We need more chicks like that around here!
Aw crap, you beat me to it also.
Uke,Uke,Uke, I expect more out of you than lame “chick” puns. Pull up your socks, man!
Your description is close enough for practical purposes, Ike.
But, just as a reminder that no one is perfect, her math skills aint up to par. Our blushes, we’ll correct that.
What inquiring minds REALLY want to know, however, was Lamm actually “Sitting cross-legged on the floor” at 25 or 6 to 4?
Perhaps ‘sitting cross-legged on the floor’ is a metaphor for freebasing or something. 
I just want to say that “25 or 6 to 4” has one of my fave guitar solos of all times and is proof positive that Chicago was once a cool band before they sold their collective soul to be lords of middle-of-the-road-adult-contemporay-bore-me-to-sleep-music.
That is all…return to your regularly scheduled thread.
I accidentally disabled smilies, so I am a :wally
Ah yes. For Chicago “the day the music died” was pretty much the same day Terry Kath shot himself.
Terry Kath was the lead guitarist; according to what I heard back in '76(?), he was playing with a gun that he thought was not loaded, pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. :rollseyes:
Thank you for your kind words, Ike. Actually, it’s more of a Lady Di 'do on my head, but otherwise, you’ve got me pretty much pegged …
As to my math, I tutored algebraically-impared football players during my college years, so I have no excuse. Mea culpa (which is Latin for “my bad”).
I’ll try to check up on the boards more often – especially if I’m going to continue finding such nice things being said about me. Thanks again!
SDStaffSongbird
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
The explanation sounds reasonable, but my interpretation was that 25 referred to LSD (AKA LSD-25) and 624 to the numbers inscribed in a quaalude tablet. Many people who took LSD in the early evening hours found themselves unable to sleep and “coming down” at three or four in the morning, which led to the question of whether to take more and thus be peaking as the sun rises or to give up and take a sedative (like methaquaalone) to get some sleep. It makes as much sense as the other, with the disadvantage that it would get your song banned from radio play. So I think the songwriter made up a plausible lie and foisted it like a Firestone tire on an unwitting public.
Believe it or not, I and some friends actually once asked the band this, so, while I can’t vouch for hidden meanings, I can tell you what we were told.
Setting: Merriweather-Post Pavilion, sometime in the early 90’s. After the concert had just ended, somebody in the group needed to make a phone call. While she was on the phone, she noticed that the guy making a call next to her was the current Kath replacement, DaWaye Bailey (I guess they didn’t have a phone backstage for the BAND??). Andway, since we’d been discussing the question, we asked him what the lyrics to the song meant.
He was pretty pleasant, and told us exactly what Songbird said - that it was a song about writing a song really early in the morning.