The band grew tired of playing this song every night and so Wilson set out to write a new song that they could play at the end of their set. Prior to the composition "Closing Time", Semisonic would usually end their concerts with the song "If I Run". While the song is about people leaving a bar at closing time (also called last call), and widely interpreted as such, drummer Jacob 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".
#Semisonic closing time meaning movie#
The song reappeared on the charts of three countries in 2011 after being featured in the 2011 movie Friends with Benefits and an episode of television sitcom The Office it attained its highest chart peaks in Australia and Ireland during this period. It is certified silver in the latter country and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1999. The single reached number one on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and the top 50 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The ballad was written by Dan Wilson and produced by Nick Launay. It was released on March 10, 1998, as the lead single from their second studio album, Feeling Strangely Fine, and began to receive mainstream radio airplay on April 27, 1998. Semisonic’s “Closing Time” appeared on 1999’s Now That’s What I Call Music! 2, alongside other 90s classics like New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” and Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.” Looking for more stories behind music’s biggest hits? Check out the Now! That’s What I Call Music page." Closing Time" is a song by American rock band Semisonic. And in 2020, Semisonic reunited for the You’re Not Alone EP, marking their first set of new music in nearly two decades. In 2006, he took home Song of the Year for the Chicks’ Top 5 single “Not Ready to Make Nice.” He also won Album of the Year as one of the contributors of Adele’s 2011 album 21 (he co-wrote the chart-topping “Someone Like You”). Wilson also became a songwriter and scored Grammy wins in the process. He followed up with 2014’s Love Without Fear and 2017’s covers album Re-Covered.
#Semisonic closing time meaning free#
Throughout the band’s long hiatus, Wilson worked on his solo career, collaborating with famed producer Rick Rubin for his 2007 debut Free Life. It was even mockingly covered by Justin Timberlake in 2011’s Friends with Benefits when co-star Mila Kunis asked him to sing a Third Eye Blind song post-coitus.įollowing the success of “Closing Time” and the Platinum-selling Feeling Strangely Fine, Semisonic released its third album All About Chemistry in 2001 and re-released Feeling Strangely Fine on vinyl to commemorate its 20th anniversary in 2018.
The single also became a pop-culture staple, popping up everywhere from The Office to The Simpsons. The catchiness and sincerity of “Closing Time” caught mainstream attention, topping Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song. I had birth on the brain, I was struck by what a funny pun it was to be bounced from the womb.” My wife and I were expecting our first kid very soon after I wrote that song. If taken at face value, “Closing Time” is indeed a “last call” anthem, but Wilson intended for a double meaning: “It’s just, ‘Okay, you’ve got to go out into the light, make your way home, or wherever you’re going to be.’ Partway into the writing of the song, I realized it was also about being born. “Because all the bars that I would frequent in Minneapolis, they would yell out ‘closing time.’ There was one bar where a guy always would scream really loud, ‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,’ and I guess that always stuck in my mind. So I set out to write a new closer for the set, and I just thought, ‘Oh, closing time,’” Wilson told American Songwriter in 2019. John and Jake were always impatient with ending the show with the same song. “We had always ended with a song called ‘If I Run,’ and I really liked it a lot. The song grew out of a much-needed change to the band’s setlists.
Soon, the drums come crashing down on the singalong-ready chorus: “I know who I want to take me home!” “Closing Time” begins as an inconspicuous ballad, with Wilson’s modest vocals pouring over a tinkling guitar riff.
0 kommentar(er)
