Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

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"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"
Single by Chicago
from the album The Chicago Transit Authority
B-side	"Listen"
Released	October 1970
Format	7"
Recorded	January 27/30, 1969
Genre	Jazz fusion
Length	4:36 (album track) 3:20 (single)
Label	Columbia Records
Writer(s)	Robert Lamm
Producer	James William Guercio
Chicago singles chronology
25 or 6 to 4 (1970) Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (1970) Free (1971)

"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" is a song written and sung by Robert Lamm for the rock band Chicago and recorded for their debut album The Chicago Transit Authority (1969).

The song was not released as a single until two records from their second album ("Make Me Smile" and "25 or 6 to 4") had become hits. It became the band's third straight Top 10 record, peaking at #7 in the U.S.

The song deals with the stress of the Vietnam War on young people who were living with the threat of the draft, coping with the deaths of their friends or even the possibility that they would be drafted and killed themselves. Thus the lyrics state that one should not care about such mundane issues as what the current time of day was. The only thing that really mattered was ending the Vietnam War.

The original uncut album version opens with a brief "free form" piano solo performed by Lamm. A spoken verse by Lamm is mixed into the sung final verse of the album version. The single version is minus the "free form" intro and the spoken verse and was originally mixed in mono. A stereo re-edit (beginning from the point where the "free form" intro leaves off) was issued on the group's Only The Beginning greatest hits CD set.

A live version on the Chicago at Carnegie Hall box set presents an expanded version of the "free form" intro, which itself is given its own track.

The song is played backwards with (fake) Satanic messages in the 2000 movie Little Nicky.

Morning news show, Morning Joe, weaves this song into their program nearly every morning.

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