“Our tip for the top for 1990, The Would Be’s and ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’. I phoned them up last night and ordered 20 copies of the record, and I’m going to pay for them too, to distribute them to the people around here at Radio 1 in the hope that some of them at least will play it because I do think that it’s especially good.” 
John Peel - BBC Radio 1

This episode focuses on The Would Be’s and their 1991 album Silly Songs For Cynical People.

But, is it an EP or is it an LP?

It’s both.

Silly Songs For Cynical People EP was the name of the band’s second single and Decoy, the band’s record company, compiled that EP with the band’s debut 12” ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ and repackaged it as an eight song album.

In Japan, Toy’s Factory Records licensed the eight song album but added the band’s third 12”, The Wonderful EP, to make an 11 song compilation album also titled Silly Songs For Cynical People (pictured above).

In July 2000 I went along to Whelan’s on Wexford St. to see The Would Be’s. My good friend Jim Comic writing in Zeitgeist his late-90s/early-00s online music publication described the gig as: “The Greatest comeback since Lazarus occurred in Dublin last night when half-forgotten Cavan indie-popsters The Would Be’s played their first gig in eight years to a full house at Whelan’s.”

Never one for hyperbola was Jim.

He continued: “While it seemed most of Cavan had travelled for the show there were enough fans to prove that this was a band who had struck a certain resonance with record buyers with their three singles of the early 90s to inspire a great deal of loyalty.”

The Would Be’s story started in the late 80s, over 10 years before that 2000 version of the band.

In the Would Be’s you had three Finnegan brothers, Mattie played guitar and wrote the music, Eamonn played bass and wrote the words and Paul also played guitar.

The Finnegans were from Kingscourt, Co. Cavan as were Aidine O’Reilly who played trombone and saxophone and drummer Pascal Smith. The band’s singer was Julie McDonnell who came from Tallanstown about half an hour away in Co. Louth.

Older brothers Mattie and Eamonn had been in various bands in the 80s and The Would Be’s came together towards the end of the decade.

In Episode 52 members of Cypress, Mine! talked about the importance of the compilation albums that were released by Comet Records and early incarnations of The Would Be’s, with different singers, appeared on Comet compilation tapes in 1988 and 1989.

Needing a new singer Aidine remembered that there was a girl in her year in school with a good voice and Julie joined the band.

In late 1989 James Finnegan, the lads’ older brother, put up £1,000 to press up 250 copies of the band’s debut single ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ which came out on Dublin indie label Danceline.

It came to the attention of John Peel and he started playing it in January 1990. Peel played ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ off the air. Indeed in 1999 for a series of BBC radio programmes called The Peelenium - Peel’s countdown to the Millennium - the DJ selected songs from the 1990s. Four bands were selected to represent 1990: Babes in Toyland, Pavement, some crowd called Nirvana and all the way from Kingscourt in Co. Cavan, The Would Be’s. Below you can hear a few minutes of Peel talking about The Would Be’s that I’ve edited together from old episodes of his radio show.

Steve Lamacq reviewed ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ in the NME in March 1990 writing that it was: “the jaunty, swinging pop single you will be familiar with if you listen to John Peel. The Would Be’s are from Dublin and even as I type, A&R people are jetting over there to ‘check them out’, and meet their parents. ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ bobs up and down with heel-clicking drums, innocent guitar and brass and a knowing female vocal layered on top.”

Lamacq may have been wrong about where The Would Be’s were from but he was 100% correct to write that A&R people were checking the band out. Record companies came from all over the world to court the band. Lamacq was also right to suggest that the record companies were meeting the band’s parents because at the time of ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ half the band were still in school. Julie and Aidine were in fifth year and Paul was in second year.

The band signed with London Indie label Decoy Records, home of indie heroes Mega City Four and the Senseless Things. ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ was reissued and the band went from playing gigs in small venues around Ireland to the Mean Fiddler in London.

Steve Lamacq also reviewed that Mean Fiddler gig in the pages of the NME writing: “four boys and two girls, they’re everything from the Undertones to Blondie via the New Seekers. This is where pop takes on the Irish showband oompah tradition and leaves it for dead, where the chancers make way for the charmers and the gorgeously unfashionable.”

He continued, “Less like Would Be’s, more like Should Be’s.”

By the end of the summer though, Julie was back in school studying for her Leaving Cert and The Would Be’s recruited Eileen Gogan as her replacement.

Decoy released two more singles, Silly Songs For Cynical People EP with its lead song ‘Funny Ha Ha’ was an NME ‘Single of the Week’ and The Wonderful EP with its lead song ‘My Radio Sounds Different In the Dark’.

By early 1992 The Would Be’s were gone.

Decoy had run out of money and the early impetus was over and we were left with just those three brilliant singles.

Julie and Aidine weren’t involved with the version of the band I witnessed in Whelan’s in 2000 but ten years later the original line-up did get back together after the inclusion of ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’ in Tony Clayton-Lea’s 2011 book 101 Irish Records You Must Hear Before You Die.

The reformed band then released the album Beautiful Mess in 2013.

I’ve been a fan of The Would Be’s since I first heard ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’.

I first saw them in 1990 when they played to around 70 people in Cork. A year later I witnessed thousands of Morrissey fans rushing the stage halfway through their set when they supported Moz in the National Stadium in April 1991. I’ve written previously about how super-charged the atmosphere was that night and how it was a miracle that no one was injured (Morrissey - Bootlegs).

I was also lucky enough to pick up that Toy’s Factory Japanese compilation of those 3 singles sometime in the late 90s. I consider it a great lost album.

I’d go so far as to say that, it’s a lost album of three of the most glorious singles ever released by any Irish band. EVER.

The Would Be’s are thankfully still with us and this year released the brilliant HindZeitgeist.

In his Irish Times review, longtime champion of the band Tony Clayton-Lea wrote: “Some bands are best left to memory, but HindZeitgeist shows that there’s always room for indie-pop melodies that linger in the sunshine.”

Amen to that.

In Clayton-Lea’s aforementioned book, Eamonn Finnegan writes that with ‘I’m Hardly Ever Wrong’: “as with most of them, we were trying to get a balance between insight into life and a sense of humour about it all.”

Eamonn continues, “it struck the right chord with all the right people, at just the right time in our lives.”

The right time in their lives and the right time in mine too.

For Further Listening:

Silly Songs For Cynical People, Beautiful Mess and HindZeitgeist are all available on Bandcamp.

The Would Be’s recorded one session for John Peel’s radio show. The session was recorded on 25 February 1990 and, like hundreds of others, was produced by former Mott the Hopple drummer Dale Griffin.

In The Peel Sessions: A story of teenage dreams and one man’s love of new music (BBC Books, 2007) Ken Garner writes of The Would Be’s that, “their debut (and only) session astonished Dale Griffin with its charm, accomplishment and humour (the trombone is not often a lead instrument in rock): ‘Paul Finnegan on guitar, only 14 years old!’ Dale wrote admiringly to Peel on the sheet.”

The Would Be’s Peel session was released in 2015 by Fifa Records on the the band’s ‘Bittersweet’ 12” single. The 12” is still available to purchase from Bandcamp. It can also be heard below.

For Further Reading:

In October 2024, I wrote about Peel Sessions and the Irish bands who recorded them…

Below: various articles, reviews and features about The Would Be’s (click on each image to enlarge).