Music Review // Eric Hirshberg "Less Important Things"

 

When "Less Important Things" first begins, you can hear these dark guitars come in to set the tone.  With the visual of the music video, you can tell there are parts in here by both a cello and piano.   Backing vocals come into the chorus to fill out the sound and it just has this big feel to it, like Bruce Springsteen or someone else along those same lines.  Yet, this also makes it feel distinct, such as a sound which you will come to know and associate with Eric Hirschberg.

This song itself is about when your kids grow up and move out, the sense of loneliness you might feel combined with accomplishment.   One of the more accurate lyrics which comes out right away says: "We built this place to withstand a riot / It's not supposed to be this quiet".  While I am not yet at this point in parenting, as a former child I can still understand how it can feel to have a house full of children and chaos at one point in time but now no more.

What I like about this song though is that it puts that emphasis on the time spent parenting, the time spent together as a family.  It's why now you're moving onto less important things and "different things" even, but it just isn't the same as that parenting time.   It's not just in the way that the house is when the kids are there, but it's also in knowing that even though the house might feel empty the kids are out there living their lives and being the people that you raised them to be, which feels so important.

Some of the lines only parents might understand include "When nothing quite fit but everything mattered" and "Something's already gone but you can't let go".   There is a nice breakdown for a bridge of rapid lyrics as well, giving more specific situations, but I feel like even if you aren't a parent who has sent their child off into the world as an adult (I am not personally) you can still at least relate to perhaps how your parents might have felt when you left home for the first time.