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"Closing Time"
Single by Semisonic from the album Feeling Strangely Fine
Released	March 24, 1998
Format	Compact Disc
Recorded	Unknown
Genre	Modern Rock
Length	4:33
Label	MCA Records
Producer	Nick Launay
Semisonic singles chronology
"Closing Time" "Singing in My Sleep"

"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 ^[1].

The place that closes seems to be a pickup bar, noted by the lines:

One last call for alcohol

So finish your whiskey or beer

...

You don't have to go home

But you can't stay here

...

So gather up your jackets

Move it to the exits

I hope you have found a friend

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:

Time for you to go out to the places you will be from

...

This room won't be open 'til your brothers or your sisters

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. [[1]]

An urban legend suggests that this song was intended to be Semisonic's final song; 'Closing Time' was, according to the legend, a farewell song for the group's fans.^{[citation needed]}

The music video was directed by Chris Applebaum. It features two continuous shots, running side by side on the screen. One side shows the band playing the song in a rehearsal space. The other side features a woman (played by actress Denise Franco), who is playing the part of the singer Dan Wilson’s girlfriend. As the video progresses, Dan and the waitress switch sides of screen, as they attempt to meet up. At the end of the video, they both wind up at the same nightclub, but just as they are about to see one another, their view is obscured by a waitress walking through their line of sight, and Dan leaves the club alone.

The “trick” of the video is that each shot was done as one long, continuous shot, with no cuts or editing, and therefore relies on proper timing during the filming to get the two sides of the video lined up properly.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl1IDJ3Gdr4