Today’s classic song of the day is “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” by Chicago. The song was first released on the group’s 1969 debut album (side one, track two) when they were still known as Chicago Transit Authority. (It was actually the first song recorded for that album.) It wasn’t released as a single at the time, however. The band waited until they had two hits from their second album (“Make Me Smile” and “25 or 6 to 4”) to release “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” as a single, in October of 1970. It rode the jazz-rock or horn rock wave of the time and hit #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on both the Billboard Adult Contemporary and Cash Box Top 100 charts.
“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” was written by Robert Lamm, the group’s keyboard player. Lamm had this to say about the song:
“[It’s] not a complicated song, but it’s certainly a quirky song. But that was my intent. I wanted to write something that wasn’t ordinary, that wasn’t blues-based, that didn’t have ice cream changes, and would allow the horns to shine and give Lee Loughnane a solo. So all that was the intent.”
As with all early Chicago songs, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” is very much a jazz-rock tune that heavily features the band’s horn section, including a notable intro solo by trumpet player Lee Laughnane. The song has an easy shuffle groove, driven by drummer Danny Seraphine, with Lamm’s vocals supported by a nifty horn arrangement. It’s a memorable tune, one that’s stood the test of time.
I played the heck out of Chicago’s first two albums back in junior high and high school. My friend Mark Shaffer and I did an arrangement of Chicago tunes for a little horn rock band we had back then and we obviously included this one. (This was back in the days before you could find anything you wanted on the Internet; we had to listen to the record and manually transcribe what we heard, which was great music theory and ear training.) So, yeah, I’ve played this one, along with our group of high school friends. It’s a fun one to play.
And for your bonus video of the day, here’s today’s greatest horn rock cover band, Leonid & Friends, doing their version of “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” They sound more like Chicago than Chicago does today!
