You admitted pretty early on that "Closing Time" was about expecting a child. Did a lot of people guess that? No, no, nobody guessed it. That experience was interesting because I thought the double meaning would be really fun for people. I thought people would get that it was about getting thrown out of the bar at the end of the night, but also getting thrown out of the womb at the beginning of your life. And I thought that was a fun pairing of meetings. But nobody got the double meaning because the bar image was so strong that it overpowered the other. So it taught me you can't be too clever.

Do you ever wish you let the mystery simmer longer? No. It's interesting, I think the song has such a huge life of its own that I can tell a dozen different stories about what it means and I don't really think it will really affect how people perceive the song. It's wonderful how that song is bigger than�any of us who were involved in it.

Has anyone given you a really wild interpretation of it? There was a time when I was getting a lot of interpretations in emails from people. One of the popular ones was it was about dying. I always thought that was fascinating because it was the furthest thing from my mind when I wrote it. I have this theory that the listener's interpretation is always better and smarter than the songwriter's interpretation. So it's best to let the listeners have their own interpretation. And I guess the reason I feel free to tell people what "Closing Time" is about is they've had plenty of time to hear it now, they already have their own ideas. I'm not gonna screw it up for them.