Music Review // Eric Hirshberg "We're All In This Alone"

 

Whether or not anyone would like to admit it, Eric Hirshberg is correct in saying that "We're All In This Alone".   If you're wondering what *this* is exactly, it is simply this thing we call life.  I do believe that we all have our own lives to lead simply because if you look at things like addiction and mental health struggles- a lot of that is not about getting help because of someone or something else but rather because you want to do so.  It comes from inside of you.

At the same time, you can very much take a look around the state of the world (and the United States) and apply this song to that as well.  No one is coming to save us.  We are in this all on our own.  I think it's important to look at lyrics like: "We get wound up / We get torn down / It all gets overblown".  This can relate a lot with the idea that we've become a society of reactionaries but not those who do anything about it.  Ultimately, we need to get the corrupt politicians out of power, and yet we're more focused on other things, most recently the actions of the US Men's hockey team, if you're following along online.

Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't be upset and that we shouldn't be voicing that to the NHL, players, etc.  But at the end of the day it's just another minor victory- like when we boycotted Disney until they brought back Jimmy Kimmel.  So I think the idea of this song is that we can work together to have these little wins, but we can't somehow work together to overthrow the government.  Also, I think it could be a reflection of how the government is also not here to help us because if you feel like the Republicans are corrupt and the Democrats will help us, well, they aren't helping anyone but themselves.

Eric Hirshberg has this great way about starting this song with a bass line, keys and yet somehow still making it all about this sort of smoky guitar work, which takes me back to a time when Bruce Springsteen was getting into his prime and rock music just felt different.  But we need more songs like this.  We need more songs with the message that: "We've gotta break this curse / Without making it worse".  We need people to be so fed up that they rise up against this government, overthrow it and then things like hockey and talk show hosts won't feel like such tough battles to fight and one would even say we might not have had to worry about such things if we started with the bigger picture.