“The girls all get prettier at closing time” (barroom adage)
Entry in progress—B.P.
Wikipedia: Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time
“Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time” is a song written by Baker Knight, and recorded by American country music artist Mickey Gilley. It was released in January 1976 as the first single from the album Gilley’s Smokin. The song was Gilley’s fifth No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. The song’s one week atop the chart was part of a 12-week stay in the country chart’s top 40.
Content
The song is a lament about loneliness and late-night desperation in finding a desirable significant other in a barroom. It caught the attention of social psychologists who used scientific testing to investigate whether individuals begin to perceive the opposite gender as being more attractive as it gets later into the night. The phenomenon became known as the “closing time effect”.
Wikipedia: Closing time effect
“Closing time effect” refers to the phenomenon that individuals begin to perceive the opposite gender as being more attractive as it gets later into the night. This observation was first coined by Mickey Gilley in his song, “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time” in 1975. Subsequently, it caught the attention of social psychologists who used scientific testing to gather evidence in support of the idea.
The experiment
Pennebaker et al. (1979) conducted the first experiment testing this observation.
OCLC WorldCat record
They do get prettier at closing time: A repeated measures study of the closing-time effect and alcohol
Author: Carly Johnco; Ladd Wheeler; Alan Taylor
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Edition/Format: Article Article : EN
Publication: Social Influence, 5, no. 4 (2010): 261-271
Database: ArticleFirst
YouTube
Mickey Gilley “Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier At Closing Time”
Cleopatra Records
Published on May 4, 2012
Artist: Mickey Gilley
Song: Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier At Closing Time