A day the internet tries very hard to be funny and mostly fails.
So before we get into tonight’s song, a quick reminder: don’t believe everything you see today. Especially if it looks even slightly dumb. It probably is.
With that in mind, we’re starting April with songs we know… but now they hit different.
Closing Time – Semisonic
“Closing Time” has always worked as exactly what it sounds like:
last call, lights up, go home.
It’s one of those songs that just slipped into culture as a bar anthem and stayed there.
But songwriter Dan Wilson told Billboard in 2018 that “Closing Time”, has a double meaning.
A decade ago, Wilson revealed that the song also has a meaning that runs a bit deeper. It’s partially inspired by the birth of his daughter, Coco. “The guys wanted a new song to close our sets with,” Wilson says. “I thought ‘Closing Time’ would be a good title. We had spent seven years of our lives at that point, four nights a week entertaining people. That was our life. Some bouncers yelling things, closing time coming, all that imagery, literally, that’s how the song started and then when I was halfway done, I started realizing the whole thing was a pun about being born, so I just made sure that the rest of the thing could ride with that double meaning, but nobody got the joke and I didn’t bother to explain. I thought everyone would get it.”
Billboard. 11/08/2018.
So those lyrics about leaving, about being pushed out into the world, about “the places you will be from”…
That’s not about a bar closing.
That’s about being born.
And somehow, it still works perfectly as both.
Now it hits different
It’s still a last call song.
It still plays at the end of the night.
But there’s something else in it now.
It’s not really about endings.
It’s about being sent into a beginning whether you’re ready or not.
