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 . It peaked at #1 on the Modern Rock Tracks. According to Rolling Stone magazine, it is the 19th most annoying song ever made.
The place that closes seems to be a pickup bar, noted by the lines: :So finish your whiskey or beer :You don't have to go home :... :Move it to the exits 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: :... :come
Note: 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.
Closing Time is the third single from the album Fellow Hoodlums by the Scottish rock band Deacon Blue.
Two of the three B-sides, "I Was Like That" and "Friends of Billy Bear", continue the style of "Fourteen Years" and "Faifley" on the "Your Swaying Arms" single, utilizing raw, Blues-influenced music and low, gruff, and rambling spoken and sung vocals from Ricky Ross. The third B-side, "Into the Good Night", is a more traditional Deacon Blue ballad.
