“25 or 6 to 4” — Chicago

Chicago were one of the biggest bands on the planet in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The plaintive “If You Leave Me Now” topped the UK and US charts in 1976 and won Chicago a Grammy.

But, much as I like “If You Leave Me Now”, my favourite Chicago track was recorded a few years before that commercial and popular high point.

“25 or 6 to 4” was a US Top 5 and UK Top 10 hit in 1970. I was too young to even be aware of it back then, but I did catch up with “25 or 6 to 4” a few years later, in the aftermath of their success with “If You Leave Me Now”.

A late night DJ I used to listen to back home played it often. So my first exposure to “25 or 6 to 4” was hearing it on a transistor radio stuck under my pillow long after everyone else in my house had gone to sleep.

These were not ideal listening conditions, to be fair. But Bluetooth-enabled stereo wireless earbuds hadn’t been invented yet, so music-mad teenagers like me had to find another way to muffle the sound of their radios to prevent their parents shouting at them to switch off the music and go to sleep.

The “transistor radio under the pillow” technique was very popular at the time…

My parent’s bedroom was upstairs on one side of the house and my bedroom was downstairs on the opposite side. So, if I was careful, I could play my transistor radio just about loud enough under the pillow for me to hear it, but not so loud that my parents would start wondering where the music was coming from.