Chicago Lyric 25 or 6 to 4 Proven Drug Reference

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I can’t believe I’m the only one with this exact reference. This is beyond all question a reference to LSD.

Consider this line…
“Should I try to do some more 25 or 6 to 4?”
Read it as “Should I try to drop some more acid?”

Here is my proof:

In the movie Captain Newman, MD (1963), Gregory Peck injects a patient with a drug, and there is close up of the bottle. The label says “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, 25 or 6 to 4” I have seen this scene at least three times.

It is not totally clear what the term means. 25 is easy to explain:
The term LSD comes from the initials of the German for lysergic acid diethylamide, or Lysersäure Diethylamid. The number “25” following it has many myths attached to it, such as it was the 25th form of LSD that Hofmann tried, or it was his 25th attempt to make LSD. From my own experience with chemical companies that are allied with pharmaceutical houses, I had assumed that the chemical name (which might be a mouthful for the pharmacologist) was simply replaced with a pronounceable code number equivalent. But the answer here is yet simpler. Hofmann, in his LSD, My Problem Child wrote: “In 1938, I produced the twenty fifth substance in a series of lysergic acid derivatives: lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD-25 … for laboratory usage.”

But then at the same document we find a possible clue:

“Within a few years of the discovery of the extraordinary potency of LSD, a large number of close analogues were synthesized by Hofmann and his allies at Sandoz. Over the following decade many were tested in humans, both in patients and healthy subjects, with the qualitative descriptions and dosages published in the medical literature.”

I think this was such an experimental drug at the time of the movie that the term may actually refer to a dosage, see this:

Delysid (LSD 25) D-lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate …
INDICATIONS AND DOSAGE

a) Analytical psychotherapy, …The initial dose is 25 µg … This dose is increased at each treatment …
b) … In normal subjects, doses of 25 to 75 µg re generally sufficient to produce a hallucinatory psychosis (on an average 1 µg/kg body weight). In certain forms of psychosis and in chronic alcoholism, higher doses are necessary (2 to 4 µg/kg body weight)

2

Just so you know, it’s helpful to provide a link to the original column so that others can follow along.

What does the Chicago lyric “25 or 6 to 4” mean?

It would be surprising that anyone in Chicago would still be putting out false stories about the lyrics 30 years after the fact. Nobody today would care if a 60s song had a drug reference in it.

But you’re certainly not the first to suggest that the song is about drugs or about LSD is particular. Putting “25 or 6 to 4” LSD into Google returns 1410 hits.

The problem with the rest of your post is that I can’t find a single reference to LSD in Captain Newman, M.D. And the notion of someone using a needle to inject a person with LSD is even odder. LSD doses come in micrograms. It’s not impossible to inject LSD but that’s a weirdly non-standard method.

So proven is a word I wouldn’t allow anywhere near this conjecture.

3

But why would a bottle of medicine have a gibberish dosage like “25 or 6 to 4?”

4

This is the only scene in which Peck’s character injects anyone. As you can see, there is no close-up of the bottle.

Man, Robert Duvall looked almost young in that movie.

5

And the injection is of sodium pentothal or “flak-juice” as they call it in the novel. It’s a critical and famous scene. (Thanks for the link though because I didn’t remember it until seeing jogged my memory. In my defense it’s been a long time since I read the book or saw the movie.) There is no possibility of them substituting LSD instead, something that would be guaranteed not to give the same effect.

6

Interesting. It’really nice that the internet allows such immediate power for debunking of mis-perceptions or mis-rememberings (I’m being charitable here) and quick clarification. Thanks, Blank Slate, for being so quick and conclusive.

7

You’re very welcome. :slight_smile:

I was a little disappointed, though. I was looking forward to watching Gregory Peck inject a patient with LSD. I wound up watching the whole movie on Youtube, in 14 segments. I wondered about the legality of it, but it’s been up for awhile and the studios are vigilant these days.

8

I don’t mean to defend this notion since I think it’s been well debunked here but I saw a Biography show on Whitey Bulger the other night and in it a guy said that Bulger had gotten early release from prison for participating in an LSD study whose purpose was to test it as a “truth serum”.

Now this was an assertion by a third party 40+ years later (IIRC this would have been 1965) so I give it no credence but I wonder whether A. the military or CIA did test LSD for this purpose and B. if not, when did the legend that they did so gain currency? If the legend were contemporary it wouldn’t be impossible that a writer might make that change although clearly they didn’t in this case.

Funny post though; I was ready to accept that LSD might have figured in a movie of the period but why in heck the bottle would read “25 or 6 to 4” wasn’t really explained at all.

9

Think the OP will ever add to his one and only post?

Great work, guys. (And now I think I’ll order Captain Newman, MD from Netflix.)

10

They were testing it as an alternate approach to the idea of truth serum. It didn’t work.

11

YES- YES, u are rite!! I knew this from an OLD issue of high times and every single damn thing i typed in came up w Chicago saying it was a time reference. FINALLY- i can prove 2 my friends that its an acid reference!! Thank u!!!

12

…and the fight continues

13

OK. And the explanation given by Bobby Lamm, the composer of 25 or 6 to 4, means nothing to you at all?

ETA - You’re right, Nemo, it’s taking longer than we thought.

14

OMG too funny, the SD propagating ignorance through google searches and selective reading!

15

Why is it that the people who are torturing lyrics to find drug references in things that have an obvious and mundane meaning always spell and capitalize like this:

:confused:

Oh, I almost forgot, BRAAAAINNNNS!

16

I blame the modern preponderance of digital clocks, especially those tied to the atomic clock in Denver. In the analog days we weren’t nearly so precise. After all, does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?

17

Never mind 25 or 6 to 4. Who has the answers to Questions 67 & 68?

18

Please don’t tell me. It really doesn’t matter anyhow.

19

My take is that this is that this is the one Chicago tune that is undeniably right in the mix with my fav classic rock tunes of the time but that I invariably forget to rank with them. I’m talking about such jams as Gimme Shelter, anything you wanna pick for the mighty zep, Jimi’s jams, the Floyd and the Beatles.

So why do I continually fail to register this tune alongside?

It’s Chicago for crying out loud. They were not in that clique and didnt wanna be. But trust me, they were musicians during those years and this song is damn well about an acid trip.

Lamm is woefully disingenuous to try and deny it with the lame bs about it being about writing a song, but likely he smiles at himself for never having told it any other way

all of these lyrics are exactly what a trip is like

you drop the dot or the blotter or a cube

and within an hour your perception changes exacty as described below

around 3 am the dose from around 9 pm is wearing out

but this new perception is magic, you don’t know what to say, you feel like you ought to sleep but you want to cruise on to sunrise and wonder if you ought to do some more

for many years I never heard that this song being about lsd was even in dispute

and everyone knew the 25 or 6 to 4

referred to dropping out versus working the shift

but you go douche wad hipsters and think it’s not

Here are the lyrics per sing 365:

Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Flashing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes
Sitting cross-legged on the floor
25 or 6 to 4
Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should I try to do some more
25 or 6 to 4
Feeling like I ought to sleep
Spinning room is sinking deep
Searching for something to say
Waiting for the break of day
25 or 6 to 4
25 or 6 to 4

20

Sounds like a guy trying to come up with lyrics to a song to me.