Pro-life video of the day: Subtle pro-life song
by Hans Johnson
While some songs leave the public arguing as to their meaning for many decades (case in point: American Pie), some seem obvious but have a hidden message unrealized by most. Dan Wilson, the lead singer of the rock group Semisonic, wanted to write a tribute song for the child he was expecting with wife Diane. Rather than have his bandmates have to participate in repeated performances of a song having personal meaning to him, he hid the message in plain sight in the song and video Closing Time.
Wilson revealed this at his recent 25th Harvard reunion, Rather than exiting a bar, it was about exiting the womb. Among the lyrics:
Closing time
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from.
Closing time
This room won’t be open ’til your brothers or your sisters come.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/xGytDsqkQY8[/youtube]
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
As a recovered bartender, I can only imagine how many times I used that line at closing time.
I always liked this song and thought it was about a bar closing up. Great work by Dan Wilson!
Some of the folks that hang-out and hang-on until bar-time are not always the easiest characters to deal with.
A line I used a lot towards the end of my bartending career with those who wanted ‘just one more’ was, “C’mon! Gotta go! It’s been real! It’s been fun! But it’s not been real fun!”
A mom giving birth could use that line during her last push of labor. (:
Hans, good, interesting thread.
Rather than have his bandmates have to participate in repeated performances of a song having personal meaning to him, he hid the message in plain sight in the song and video Closing Time.
I am curious about this – why would it matter that the song had personal meaning to him? So many songs have personal meaning to the writer.
Praxedes: “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
As a recovered bartender, I can only imagine how many times I used that line at closing time.
I always liked this song and thought it was about a bar closing up. Great work by Dan Wilson!
I imagine darn near everybody thought that… Even reading the lyrics now, I think one would have to know that he was expecting a child, to realize what he meant. I do like the clever interweaving of both themes in the lyrics.
Some of the folks that hang-out and hang-on until bar-time are not always the easiest characters to deal with.
Been a good while, a decade or more, but I’ve been one of those people that don’t want to leave. “One more…” 2 in the morning…ouch.
A line I used a lot towards the end of my bartending career with those who wanted ‘just one more’ was, “C’mon! Gotta go! It’s been real! It’s been fun! But it’s not been real fun!”
A mom giving birth could use that line during her last push of labor. (:
I shudder to think….
“I shudder to think….”
The Real Fun starts when they are teenagers/young adults! The real dads get to participate more fully in this labor or love! ;)
“As a recovered bartender”
So, is there a twelve step program for that one?
“So, is there a twelve step program for that one?”
Just three steps, mister.
Towards. the. door.
You know, when I first discovered this was a pro-life song, I just sort of saw a headline “Closing Time song has pro-life message” etc. and listened to it. I really thought that it was specifically about abortion – it was only later I read, “Oh, this is about giving birth to a child?”
Because, really, the lyrics DO sound a lot like they could be about abortion.
“Open all the doors and let you out into the world” made me think of abortion where a baby is deliberately delivered prematurely so they can’t survive. “Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl” sounds like the florescent clinic lights. “This room won’t be open till your brothers or your sisters come” – like the ‘wanted’ siblings born after the ‘unwanted’ child. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” is rather like the excuses given for abortion e.g. “Well, you need to be thinking about you, and your future and opportunities”.
Anyway, now that’s all I can think of when I hear this song…