Would-Be-Goods: Brief Lives

Would-Be-Goods is essentially the nom de plume of Jessica Griffin, who supplies vocals and guitars on Brief Lives, her musical outlet’s third full-length. Griffin was originally a protegee of Mike Alway and his label-cum-wannabe-media-monolith el Records; the two of them released a mythological album of perfectly pleasant continental pop, The Camera Loves Me (backed by members of pop-jazzsters The Monochrome Set), in 1988. Griffin was largely silent until 1992, when a second album, Mondo was released in Japan and remained hard to find until 1998.

Featuring Peter Momtchiloff (formerly of Marine Research and Heavenly) on bass and guitar, Orson Presence (apparently his real name, although with the scent of Griffin’s former svengali Alway’s obsession with pseudonyms lingering here, it’s anyone’s guess whether or not this is true) on pianos and organs, and Jim Kimberley on drums, Brief Lives will bring joy to anyone who’s familiar with Would-Be-Goods. Griffin’s always been a brilliant writer, creating a world with the simplest lyrics, and this pseudo-concept album is no different.

The album’s theme is mirrored in the album photos: Griffin straddles on a motorbike on the cover, dresses in front of a mirror on the rear, and stands forlornly on a balcony on the tray card. Just like the art, the album give us snapshots of the brief lives of its various characters. There’s the “Elegant Rascal” who “lives on kipper patty / Purchased from a local cafe”, the narrator of “Richard III”, who eats ice cream on a sunny afternoon with her “wicked uncle” who offers to set the narrator on his knee, and the woman in “Fancy Man” who hears people whispering behind her bed about her fancy man who’s not really her fancy man after all. So vivid are Griffin’s lyrics that we can actually see the unfortunate protagonist of “A Season in Hell” suffering: he has to put up with “The waiter’s hollow laugh / And the maitre-d’s moustache / And the ring around the bath”, not to mention “The bottle of cheap red / Hidden underneath the bed”.

One of the delightful elements about the Would-Be-Goods’ debut was the fact that almost every song was accompanied with an invisible smirk or arched eyebrow. Perhaps this was because of Alway’s influence — or The Monochrome Set’s (who never really took themselves seriously, anyway) — but Griffin’s liner notes certainly didn’t help, with their narrative about a blase young woman going to the theater with a “complete Philistine” named Archie who likes the way that “boiled lamb and overdone carrots reminded him of school”. But while that album was replete with nudges-in-the-ribs songs like “Velasquez and I” (I??) and “Cecil Beaton’s Scrapbook”, the new album comes across as more lyrically and musically mature.

What’s immediately noticeable about this album is its melancholy quality. Sure, the song “Death a la Carte” did appear on Would-Be-Goods’ debut, but that song came across as harmless fun: for crying out loud, the title rhymed with “apple tart”. The feeling of something being somehow wrong behind the stories of socialites and luminaries is evident from the lyrics of “Mystery Jones”. This fellow is a “Prestidigitator and creator of illusions / You’ll never believe”; his wife Mrs. Jones is an exotic dancer who “didn’t have the answers / So he sawed her in two”. However, this gothic image is completely undercut by the warm, vamping organ on the bridge of the song. Later on, we’re told in the waltzing “Bad Lord Byron” that the dignitary is “bad / And dangerous to know / Said Lady Caroline Lamb / And she, for one, should know”. In this case, Byron’s notoriousness feels like it’s been reduced to drawing-room gossip.

So maybe the tongue-in-cheek quality hasn’t disappeared completely. “Trying to Be Bad” begins, “Mama said to me / Always say thank you and please / Don’t forget your handkerchief / And never show your knees / Never show your knees.” It’s almost like we’re back in the realm of the coquettish “The Camera Loves Me” from Griffin’s first album. We find out later, though, that the narrator dreams about sitting at a corner table “in a dark cafe / Waiting for a stranger’s / Hand upon my knee / Waiting for somebody to say / Come home with me / But what would I do / As my buttons were undone / And all my inhibitions / Surfaced one by one.” These lyrics are accompanied by an evil guitar line that underscores the fact that this isn’t merely fun and games anymore.

While Griffin sings like her heroines Francoise Hardy and Astrud Gilberto, the music backing her lyrics is varied enough in its influences to keep things moving. From the French pop feel of “Vivre Sa Vie” (written by Momtchiloff, and, considering his former bands, this song is the most Heavenly on the album-Griffin can’t help but sound like Amelia Fletcher to anyone who’s familiar with her), to the Spanish guitar ballad of “Esperanza”, to the British music hall of “Richard III”, to the percolating organ-driven rock of “Elegant Rascal”, to the gentle strings of “1999” — the music is sophisticated and maintains a fine balance of delicacy and strength throughout.

A friend once compared Would-Be-Goods to a sophisticated older sister, who simply can’t help but be a goody-goody. With Brief Lives, we’ve discovered that the older sister is still sophisticated, although she’s looking at the world with a more jaundiced eye now.