The writer, "Sir John Johns" is the psychadelic alter-ego of Andy Partridge, which he used for the Dukes of Stratosphear, the psychadelic alter-ego of XTC. "25 O'Clock" was the title track of the Dukes' first EP (released in 1984, and followed by the 1987 album, Psonic Psunspot), and was inspired by psychaedelic artists's obsession with time. Neville Farmer's book on XTC identifies the Electric Prunes (particularly "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night") as the main source for the song's feel,
but also mentions that the Chamber Brothers, Man, and Tomorrow were all influences. TMBG recorded this song for the XTC tribute album A Testimonial Dinner. Their original thought was to cover an early XTC song (possibly "This Is Pop"), but they couldn't quite manage it, so they did this Dukes tune instead. The backwards part (not present in the original) is a listing of bands that were contemporary with XTC's height of popularity. One of them was Adam Ant, and this inspired XTC Vs. Adam Ant.
