It isn't easy to describe the music of Goodbye Girl Friday (GGF). If you pushed me I would say it is like a cross between Supertramp and Billy Joel with perhaps a touch of R.E.M. - but in a good way! It is eclectic piano driven pop rock with a melancholy, at time almost tragic, sense. What is refreshing about the music and the lyrics of frontman David Sherman - along with percussionist Andy Sanesi and bassist Dan Grennes - is that they are clearly adult. GGF is not the product of a marketing campaign or a TV reality show. Call me an old foggy if you must, but I prefer actual music created by real people. If you are looking for screaming adolescents, regular pelvic thrusting, or movie tie-ins GGF is probably not for you.

GGF have just released their sophomore effort entitled Silver and Gold. Silver and Gold is an interesting mix of styles and tones, from pop to soul to alternative. What ties the album together is a meditation on the seeming fragile nature of life and relationships. The lyrics of the title track reflect this melancholy feeling:

Silver or gold
It don't really last forever
Truth be told
You can lose it all in just one night

Sherman isn't really concerned with money, however, that's not the silver and gold he's after. Rather it is relationships that are the focus. In the leadoff song, Better on Paper, Sherman takes an ironic, and slightly bitter, look at the media driven nature of our culture and its effect on relationships:

If I was in magazines
Would you think more of me
If you heard about me
Would you be my love
If I was a feature piece
A cover story gravy feast . . .

I'm not who I've seemed to be
These faces I have worn
Never fully formed
Waiting to be born
Swinger, player, one night strayer
Faces I have worn
A card up my sleeve
A devil to believe
But what if I changed
If I made things right
Would you come back
And turn around the time
And bring me back to life . . .

Sherman returns to this theme throughout. The subject of the aptly titled Married Man apparently loves the other women - someone "chasing a married man." Mother Me communicates the desperate feeling of being rejected by the one you love. In all of these songs there is desire mixed with rejection and yet hope for reconciliation.