On This Day: Chicago’s Robert Lamm Turns 82
Robert Lamm turns 82 on October 13, 2026. Revisit the Chicago co-founder’s songwriting and his account of how “25 or 6 to 4” took shape.
Robert Lamm turns 82 on October 13, 2026. Chicago’s official history records the keyboardist, singer and composer’s birth in Brooklyn on October 13, 1944. His birthday is a good moment to look behind the band’s familiar name at one of its central writers.
Writing at the centre
In his first-person biography on the band’s website, Lamm traces his musical education through a Brooklyn church choir, teenage bands in Chicago and studies in music theory and composition at Roosevelt University. An invitation in early 1967 brought him into the group that became Chicago.
Lamm describes composing as his main interest, alongside playing and singing. He also recalls learning to arrange horns for his songs, with experimentation central to the process. That is useful context for a band whose arrangements reach beyond a conventional guitar-led lineup.
The clock behind “25 or 6 to 4”
In an interview excerpt shared by Chicago, Lamm explains that he began developing the song at a piano late at night. A clock showing roughly twenty-five or twenty-six minutes before four supplied the title; describing the act of writing became the song’s subject.
For a birthday revisit, listen for the composition as well as the individual instrumental parts. Which Chicago song best captures what you value in Lamm’s writing?
AI-assisted editorial illustration adapted from “Robert Lamm 2022” by Drussel1 (July 13, 2022) and “Robert Lamm profile plus” by Smuckola (April 22, 2013). Both source photographs and this adapted illustration are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: original illustrated pose, lighting, background and typography; proportional export. Retrospective appearance, not a photograph of a 2026 event.
