| "Closing Time" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Semisonic | ||||
| from the album Feeling Strangely Fine | ||||
| Released | March 10, 1998 | |||
| Format | CD | |||
| Recorded | mid-1997 | |||
| Genre | Post-grunge,[1] Rock, Pop[2] | |||
| Length | 4:33 (album version) 3:49 (single version) |
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| Label | MCA | |||
| Writer(s) | Dan Wilson | |||
| Producer | Nick Launay | |||
| Semisonic singles chronology | ||||
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"Closing Time" is the title of a song by American alternative rock band Semisonic. It was released in March 1998 as the lead single from their album Feeling Strangely Fine. One of the band's most popular songs, 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.[3] It reached number-one on the Modern Rock Tracks.
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The book So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star (ISBN 0-7679-1470-8) by Semisonic's drummer Jacob Slichter indicates that the song was written partly in response to the anxious, and at times precarious, state of the band during the opening of Wilson's new bar, The Rehab Lounge, which closed in late 2008;[4] however, Slichter has also indicated that the song was written by Wilson "in anticipation of fatherhood", and that it is about "being sent forth from the womb as if by a bouncer clearing out a bar".[5]
The memorable line repeated throughout the song's stanzas, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" is often mistakenly attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger.
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 Denise Franco), who is playing the part of the singer Dan Wilson's girlfriend. As the video progresses, Dan and his girlfriend switch sides of screen, as they attempt to meet up. At the end of the video, they both wind up at the same nightclub. However, they still end up missing each other by mere seconds and never meet up. 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.
"Closing Time" was the final song in the polka medley "Polka Power!" on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 album Running with Scissors.
| Chart (1998/2011) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australia ARIA Charts | 40 |
| Canadian RPM Alternative 30 | 2 |
| Dutch Top 40 | 84 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 50 |
| UK Singles Chart | 25 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Airplay | 11 |
| U.S. Billboard Mainstream Top 40 | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks | 13 |
| U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks | 1 |
| Chart (2011) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australia ARIA Charts | 40 |