Nineties Song “Closing Time” Isn’t About the End of a Night Out
Readers, please join me as I take a break from my science advocacy writing and reminisce.
Four years ago around this time, I was large, uncomfortable, and more than ready to evict my first child from my fatigued body. Fast forward to the end of January, and with an audible “pop,” my water broke at 2:30 a.m. on my due date. Perched on the toilet in the uncertain dark, I yelled for my husband, “Jesse! I don’t think this is pee!” Not one of my finest moments. Little did I know, the day ahead would be filled with unsightly gems, progressively less cute than the one before.
After a few hours of failed attempts at sleeping, I devoured a bowl of chili, and headed with my husband to the hospital where my sister entered the world twenty years earlier. My daughter emerged after an arduous twelve hours of labor and an epidural that barely worked, with a double umbilical loop around her neck and a “true knot” in the cord. She looked angry, and primordially beautiful.
My sister was at college, so wasn’t able to visit us in the hospital. Nevertheless, she gave us a wonderful gift: The next morning, I received an email with a link to a special performance by Dan Wilson of the band Semisonic.
If you’re around my and my husband’s age (we’re both 32), you’ll likely remember the song “Closing Time.” The song came out when I was a self-centered, doe-eyed teenager, so of course I didn’t glean its true meaning when it was released in 1998.
My husband and I clicked the YouTube link from my sister, with our tiny newborn daughter in the bassinet next to the hospital bed, and watched in amazement. By the end, my hormones and emotions got the best of me, and I was dabbing my eyes.
Dan Wilson explains, “I hid my junior song in plain view….” If you’re a biological parent, think back to having your first child as you watch this. If you’re short on time, start listening at 3:44.
If you didn’t know this before, you’re welcome. To this day, I still get choked up when I hear Closing Time on the radio.
Now stop getting sappy. I’m off to go prepare for a Frozen-themed 4th birthday party. I’ll leave you with a toast, to firstborn children, to my sister, to life. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
Featured image © 2015 Kavin Senapathy
This is great, thank you :). I don’t comment much but I really appreciate your writing. My daughter turns 4 on Jan 26th. Cheers 🙂
When I first read the title, I thought you were talking about the Leonard Cohen song. I am 46, so of course would be thinking more about the geezers!
I always enjoy your writing, though, and this was great.
Thanks guys 🙂 I can’t believe that little peanut is turning 4. I’ll be taking her home with me for at least 14 more years. The first time taking her home was sweet and terrifying!
thanks so much for making me cry lol. I’m pregnant right now so yeah 🙂 It is beautiful and I had no clue!
Very heart touching 🙂
Thank you for sharing this with us! I had no idea and I really love this song.
It’s overall it’s a fantastic song for dealing with changes in our lives. Seven years ago it came to have important meaning to me as I made major changes in mine – leaving the only place I’d ever lived after 30 years there, an employer of 12 years, etc. And the journey ahead held even more that I couldn’t have imagined – not just the new place and job, but also needing to make a renewed push at a gender transition that was stalled since age 19.
A lot of old beginnings had to end, and I am so much the better for it.
This is awesome. I feel a similar way about ‘A Thousand Years.’ This is my first time commenting, but I hope you don’t mind me sharing it here: http://domesticpirate.com/song-translation-a-thousand-years/
Or course I put the old link in there. Jeeze. http://domesticpirate.com/better-as-lullaby/
I always think of my children when I hear this song. I love romantic love songs, but A Thousand Years is so fitting for the love between a parent and child.
Nice article 🙂 Very Impressive, shared it to my social profiles also. Keep it up.
I’m replying almost four years late, for which I apologize! But I found your original post when I looked up the song “Closing Time,” after having learned just today that Dan Wilson wrote it about the impending birth of his child, and about his own new parenthood. I’ve always loved this song, but, while I never believed it was literally about beng bounced from a bar, I would have bet money that that bar was a metaphor for young adults leaving the familiarity and partial security of college to take up new jobs in new cities, and to start becoming who they were meant to be. Little did I know that its author was referring to an even more basic and primordial change!!
Still, I agree with Danielle that the song can be interpreted more broadly to mean that change is always with us, and can usually bring us good things, if we just let it.
Thanks again for you post, and all best to you and your family in 2019.