Closing Time (Gavin Duerson)

This past week, Wylie came home for the eighth time.  There have been some usual bumps in the road with getting home and some not so usual bumps.  It turns out that Wylie was lacking oxygen for a long time because a cap was not screwed on properly to her oxygen machine.  This was a terrible and heartbreaking realization, but a relief once fixed.  Wylie returned to her healthy awake self almost immediately.

So last night, at about 3 a.m., Karla woke in a panic that we had forgotten to give Wylie her 2 a.m. medications.  I sprang to the floor and frantically dashed to the kitchen to get her meds that were now an hour late.  It didn’t take long for Karla and me to realize that we don’t give Wylie medications at 2am anymore.  No matter, my heart was racing and I resigned myself to the fact that I would not likely be sleeping again for awhile.  So, I enjoyed listening to Wylie breath soundly on her C-Pap machine for several minutes before defaulting to my usual podcasts I like to listen to when trying to sleep.

One of these podcasts is called “Song Exploder.” It’s a great podcast that takes a song, deconstructs it so that you hear how and why it was put together.  You hear early demos and each track.  The artist explains the hows and whys of instrument selection and certain sounds in the song.  The episode I played was about the song “Closing Time” by Semisonic which is a 90’s rock song that always annoyed me.  I’m not sure if it annoyed me because I disliked the song, or that I actually liked it. Either way, it seemed like a dumb song about people being kicked out of the bar at night.  Well, it turns out that the song really is not about that at all.

In this Song Exploder episode, the lead singer and songwriter Dan Wilson explains that “Closing Time” has a double meaning.  He wrote and recorded it while he spent a year in the hospital with his premature daughter.  The song is really about her birth.  He shares that the song and the recording process proved to be a valuable outlet in the midst of the difficulties of his time in the hospital.  I, of course, could relate to this all too well.  Coaching basketball has proved to be this outlet for me (Not to mention that I too released an album this year that I'm sure you own and enjoyed all Christmas long).  In addition, he shares a really neat story at the end about the day that this song was released to radio. I couldn’t help but think of all the stories of “coincidences” that have happened since Wylie has entered our life.  I look forward to sharing some of them in due time.

So, below is the podcast link for your enjoyment.  I know this post is not terribly deep or inspirational.  However, I will never hear this song the same again without thinking about Wylie wanting us to take her home and ultimately the God of the universe that will take us all Home someday.  Perhaps you will enjoy this as well.

-Gavin Duerson