One more song

Anyone who has closed a bar down knows the last-call feeling. The lights come up half a notch, somebody starts stacking chairs, and everyone in the room has to decide whether tonight is over or not.

That's the whole setup for "One More Song." The bartender says they're closing slow. Two people look at each other like neither one knows how to be the first to leave. And then the band plays one more.

I like that the song doesn't try to solve anything. It isn't a love story with a plan. It's a few more minutes, and the idea that a few more minutes is sometimes the right answer. Goodbye can wait. It's not going anywhere, and it's easier to deal with after one more.

It's also a song I think works best at the end of a night, not the beginning. If you've got a Friday ahead of you, save it for the drive home, when the streets are empty and the windows are cracked and the evening hasn't quite finished with you yet.

Nothing in it is complicated. Somebody didn't want the night to end, so it didn't, for three more minutes. That's a pretty good reason to write a song.