25 or 6 to 4, Chicago (1970)

The Chicago album, also sometimes known as Chicago II

I'm not going to get into all the debate about the meaning of the title of this song. I don't really care! It is quite simply a song that was one of a number I deem responsible for keeping me from slitting my wrists during my first year away at college.

If you subscribe to the theory that music can release endorphins into your system, and I do, this nearly 5 minute extravaganza unfailingly transformed my naturally depressive tendencies into actual joie de vivre. And does to this day. Horns in a rock song? Unheard of at the time!

I can only imagine what it must have been like for the guys to cut that record. I hope that same joie was as present for them when they realized what they'd done.

I find it an abomination that some radio stations will cut Terry Kath's guitar solo in the middle of the song to fit today's non-album-oriented radio formats. That's akin to larceny in my book. Maybe a "special" version was actually edited by producers for this purpose. Whatever, it's wrong, wrong, wrong.

YouTube has some footage of one of the early performances of 25 or 6 to 4 in Amsterdam; it's very raw but quite a find. You can see Kath really working that wah-wah pedal!

I defy anyone who hears this song to not succumb to its infectious call to get up and MOVE. And it's hard to be sluggish and downtrodden when you're shaking that tail feather.