You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
There are some songs that you've heard over and over and over again throughout your life.
Closing Time by Semisonic is one of those songs for me, and I think for a lot of people.
And I always figured I knew what the song was about, Closing Time at a bar.
But it turns out there's more to the story.
And in this episode, Dan Wilson,
the singer and songwriter of the band Semisonic, tells the whole story.
Closing Time came out in March 1998.
It hit number one on the alternative charts and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Song.
It gets played in stadiums, Weird Al covered it,
and it's the last song of the night in countless bars.
In the years since the song came out,
Dan has gone on to become a powerhouse songwriter who's written or co-written for artists like John Legend and Taylor Swift,
and he's won Grammys for his songwriting with the Dixie Chicks and Adele.
But over two decades ago, Dan and his bandmates, John Munson and Jacob Slichter,
were in Minneapolis, getting ready to start work on their second album, Feeling Strangely Fine.
I'm Dan Wilson.
writing Closing Time in a big batch of songs in late 96 or early 97.