When The Light Appears Boy

Here‘s another Ginsberg music collaboration, (from 1997) – with the British Asian Indy rock band, Cornershop, (from the album When I Was Born for the 7th Time), “When The Light Appears Boy” – Allen intones his poem against the overlaid soundscape of rhythms including a sampling of recorded Indian street sounds.

Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres are the nucleus of Cornershop.
Tjinder Singh: “We went with David Byrne to Ginsberg’s small apartment in New York, and when we went in The Beatles Anthology was playing, so we talked about that, had some tea, and recorded him on a tape-recorder in the kitchen, with the harmonium, creaks and all. He did a poem he always thought would sit well with music, “When The Light Appears, Boy”.

“You’ll come fast/or come on slow/ just the same/you’ll never know/when the light appears, boy/ when the light appears.”