Semisonic Looks Back At 'Closing Time' While Unleashing 'Chemistry'

01/31/2001 1:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Matt Ashare

(1/31/01, 1 p.m. ET) - Semisonic has returned to the airwaves with "Chemistry," the first single from All About Chemistry, due March 6 on MCA Records. Although singer-songwriter Dan Wilson and bassist John Munson have toiled for more than a decade, first in Trip Shakespeare, and later as Semisonic with drummer Jacob Slichter, it wasn't until the 1998 monster hit "Closing Time" that they found commercial success. That song helped elevate the band's second album, Feeling Strangely Fine, to platinum status and is still garnering airplay today.

Wilson tells LAUNCH that "Closing Time" became more than just a hit single. "As far as I'm concerned, 'Closing Time' is 'Who Let The Dogs Out.' When exactly did I dream of getting played at the World Series? I don't remember that, you know, but there it was. And everyone has their own take on the song, which is kind of funny to me. Everybody has their own kind of meaning that they assume I was intending."

Munson, too, has found the song inescapable. "My dad called up the other night when the Vikings were on Monday Night Football and said, 'Did you hear your song? It was right in there between [Prince's] 'Purple Rain' and some [Bob] Dylan tune.' And I was like, 'Weird. That's great company to be in.' It just so happens that we're from Minneapolis, so we get to be associated with icons like that."

Even though the song has become an anthem of sorts, Wilson tells LAUNCH he has not grown tired of it. "I think it's a really good song...I must be lucky, because I know there are people who have hit songs, and maybe it's the song that took them like two minutes to write, and they think it's a piece of crap and it turns into a hit and dogs them for the rest of their life. But 'Closing Time' I think is a kick-ass song, and so is 'Secret Smile.' Every time I hear those on the radio, I just feel proud. I don't go, 'Oh damn, that hit.' And I don't understand people who do, actually."

-- Craig Rosen, Los Angeles

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