Said Wilson: “ I was initially trying to write a song to end the Semisonic shows with. Wilson explained in an interview with American Songwriter that he wasn’t consciously trying to write a song about the birth of his first born child, but it became obvious as he was writing the tune. I run into people all the time who tell me, Oh I worked in this one bar for four years and I heard your song every single night.” There no mistaking the message: “ You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” Semisonic vocalist and songwriter Dan Wilson told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2010 interview: “ I really thought that that was the greatest destiny for ‘Closing Time,’ that it would be used by all the bartenders, and it was actually. The book So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star by Semisonic’s drummerJacob 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 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”.Ĭlosing Time remains a popular song at bars when they are ready to pack it up. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1999. It reached # 1 on the Modern Rock Tracks. One of the band’s most popular songs, it was written by Dan Wilson and produced by Nick Launay. It was released in March 1998 as the lead single from their album Feeling Strangely Fine. Jones is secretly about the Nancy Kerrigan’s knee.Closing Time is a song by American alternative rock band Semisonic.
![semisonic closing time reference to birth semisonic closing time reference to birth](https://images.genius.com/403cd303f29df89334b6bfaf347e4c66.700x700x1.jpg)
Next week: Perhaps I can examine whether the Counting Crows’ Mr.
![semisonic closing time reference to birth semisonic closing time reference to birth](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/13j4RqesI8I/maxresdefault.jpg)
Verdict: It really might be about childbirth, with a few serious red herrings thrown in. Sure thing, makes sense, pregnancy ends, life begins, lightning crashes.Īnd from here on, it’s just the chorus a few more times and a few repeated lines. Makes sense for twins, perhaps? Otherwise I’m not sure this works in the macro picture.Ĭlosing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Although I’m not sure that this line is really spectacular in the bar OR pregnancy contexts. The womb wasn’t available until the other siblings got out of there. Makes more context in the childbirth sense than the bar sense actually.Ĭlosing time, this room won’t be open till your brothers or your sisters come The baby wants his parents to take him home? This feels a little insecure, like Dan Wilson was worried his baby might’ve rejected him for one of the guys from Better Than Ezra.Ĭlosing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from I know who I want to take me home / I know who I want to take me home / I know who I want to take me home / Take me home So this is quite definitively the child being bounced from the womb. Gee, wonder why people thought this was really about a bar? Is whisky and beer like one last quick suck of nutrients from the umbilical cord?Ĭlosing time, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. And I guess this line refers to hospital lights? Unless it’s a metaphor on top of a metaphor and is referring to the beginning of human consciousness or something.Ĭlosing time, one last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer
![semisonic closing time reference to birth semisonic closing time reference to birth](https://superflashcreative.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/semisonic.gif)
The “boy/girl” stuff makes more sense now. We’re off to a smashing start.Ĭlosing time, turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl So let’s go line-by-line through Closing Time and try to interpret it in its alternative context.Ĭlosing time, open all the doors and let you out into the worldĭoors = the vagina. They think it’s about being bounced from a bar but it’s about being bounced from the womb. Millions and millions of people bought the song and heard the song and didn’t get it. Semisonic’s lead singer, Dan Wilson, explained during a performance at his 25th reunion at Harvard… It turns out the entire song was actually a metaphor for childbirth. No one reazlied Semisonic had a little of that Robert Frost mojo in them. Closing Time was immediately and permanently the go-to song for the end of the night at bars, weddings, bar mitzvahs, parties, quinceaneras and Semisonic concerts.īut here’s the thing. It would be Semisonic’s only hit - but what a hit. The song featured lyrics (ostensibly) about a lonely person’s experience during last call at a bar. In 1998, a song called Closing Time came out as the debut single from a band called Semisonic. A line-by-line examination into the lyrics must be done.
![semisonic closing time reference to birth semisonic closing time reference to birth](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Closing_Time_single.jpg)
The lead singer of Semisonic says he wrote the song as a metaphor for childbirth.