Closing Time (Semisonic song)

Closing Time is a song by Semisonic from their album Feeling Strangely Fine. The band's most popular song, it was written by Dan Wilson and produced by Nick Launay. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1999 ^[1]. It peaked at #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks. According to Rolling Stone magazine, it is the 19th most annoying song ever made.^[2]

The place that closes seems to be a pickup bar, noted by the lines:

One last call for alcohol

So finish your whiskey or beer

...

You don't have to go home

But you can't stay here

...

So gather up your jackets

Move it to the exits

I hope you have found a friend

However, the book So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star (ISBN 0-7679-1470-8) by Semisonic's drummer Jacob Slichter indicates that it is, instead, about being born: the place that is closing is the womb, and the mention of alcohol is a reference to pregnant women not drinking. This can be seen in the lines:

Time for you to go out to the places you will be from

...

This room won't be open 'til your brothers or your sisters

come

This interpretation has additional support. In a show in which he opened up for Sondre Lerche, Dan Wilson noted that the song was written for the birth of his child, in an attempt not to be one of those annoying songs that an artist wrote for the birth of a "jr," he made sure the meaning was abstracted. ^[3]

Some listeners, however, have concluded that the song concerned graduation.[1]

1 Music video
2 In popular culture
3 References
4 External link

[edit] Music video

The music video was directed by Chris Applebaum. It features two continuous shots, running side by side on the screen. One side shows the band playing the song in a rehearsal space. The other side features a woman (played by actress Denise Franco), who is playing the part of the singer Dan Wilson’s girlfriend. As the video progresses, Dan and the waitress switch sides of screen, as they attempt to meet up. At the end of the video, they both wind up at the same nightclub, but just as they are about to see one another, their view is obscured by a waitress walking through their line of sight, and Dan leaves the club alone.

The “trick” of the video is that each shot was done as one long, continuous shot, with no cuts or editing, and therefore relies on proper timing during the filming to get the two sides of the video lined up properly.

[edit] In popular culture

This song was played on The Simpsons episode That 90's Show on the 19th season.
Matchbox 20 and Green Day have both performed covers of this song.
The Song is featured in "Weird Al" Yankovic's Polka Power
This song has also been featured in a music video for the popular television series Friends. This video shows the clips of the season finale of the series with song playing in the background.

[edit] References

^ 41st Grammy Awards - 1999. Rock on the Net. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
^ Rolling Stone : The 20 Most Annoying Songs
^ YouTube - Dan Wilson - Closing Time w/intro - live Troubadour 11/12/07

[edit] External link

Music video for "Closing Time" at YouTube

Preceded by "The Way" by Fastball	Billboard Modern Rock Tracks number-one single May 30, 1998 - June 28, 1998	Succeeded by "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls