More About Beginnings: Semisonic: “Closing Time”
The 1998 song, “Closing Time” from the band, Semisonic serves as a lyrical homage to that all-too-familiar moment that occurs around 2:00 a.m. at most drinking establishments—closing time. There’s even a classic bar-culture phrase that makes it way into the song that sums it all up: “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.” Reportedly the song is not just about leaving a bar at the end of the night, but about moving from one life chapter to another. The lead singer and songwriter, Dan Wilson penned the song while his girlfriend was pregnant, and it ended up being about pending fatherhood, childbirth and new life (for all involved): “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”