Eric Hirshberg’s new single “Less Important Things” begins from a place that many parents eventually reach, even if few are fully prepared for it: the house gets quiet. The latest release from his forthcoming album More Is Not The Answer looks at the emotional shift that follows becoming an empty nester, when years of routines, interruptions, noise, and responsibility suddenly give way to space.
The song does not treat that shift as a clean tragedy or a sentimental milestone. Hirshberg is too precise a writer for that. Instead, “Less Important Things” lingers in the mixed feeling of it all: pride, sadness, gratitude, relief, confusion, and the strange ache of realizing that the center of gravity in a home has changed.
His own description of the song is direct and useful: “It is a love song to the journey of parenthood and the bittersweetness of letting go,” he says. “You spend years building your life around the noise, chaos, and rhythm of raising kids, and then one day the house gets quiet in a way you were never really prepared for.” That sentence gives the song its emotional architecture. This is a track about absence, but also about the life that made the absence meaningful.
One of the strongest lines arrives early: “You build this place to withstand a riot / It’s not supposed to be this quiet.” It is a lyric that works because it feels specific and lived-in. Hirshberg is not writing parenthood in broad inspirational language. He is writing about the physical reality of a home designed around children, one that suddenly feels too sturdy for its new stillness.
Musically, “Less Important Things” is restrained without feeling slight. The arrangement gives the song room to breathe, allowing the vocal to carry the weight of the story before the track gradually opens outward. There is a cinematic warmth to the production, but it stops short of overexplaining the emotion. The song trusts the listener to understand the silence at its center.
The accompanying in-studio performance video reinforces that sense of restraint. Rather than turning the song into a dramatic visual statement, the video keeps the focus on Hirshberg and the band in a room together. That choice suits the material. A song about presence, memory, and letting go benefits from a setting that feels grounded and unadorned.
“Less Important Things” also helps clarify the shape of Hirshberg’s forthcoming album. His recent releases have dealt with connection, distraction, technology, anxiety, and the difficulty of holding onto meaning in a noisy world. This song brings those larger concerns home, literally. The modern world may be one source of disconnection, but parenthood introduces its own reckoning with time, attention, and change.
Hirshberg’s background as the former CEO of Activision and former CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Deutsch LA inevitably adds context to his writing. He has spent much of his life thinking about what captures attention. On “Less Important Things,” he turns that lens inward, toward the things that hold attention because they matter most: the years spent raising children, the rituals that disappear, and the quiet left behind.
The result is one of Hirshberg’s most affecting recent songs, largely because it does not push too hard. “Less Important Things” is thoughtful, adult, and emotionally clear. It understands that letting go is rarely a single moment. It is a long adjustment to a new kind of love.
