Cornershop, When I Was Born For The 7th Time

I got When I Was Born For The 7th Time at a used record store, along with Homework by Daft Punk. I ended up getting two of the year�s greatest albums for less than $15. I took both of them home and listened to Homework immediately; I was more excited about that than the other. But when I finally got around to When I Was Born, I was immediately aware of the hopeful magic in �Sleep On The Left Side� and the buoyant, smirking optimism of �Funky Days Are Back Again� and �Good Shit�. The same night I got those albums, I was getting drunk with my friend who also happened to be in a fraternity. Students in the Greek System at Lawrence didn�t quite fit the stereotype as well as those at larger schools; they were too geeky, for one, and even the beefy football players and champion drinkers were pretty tame when measured against most people�s preconceptions of Greek life.

My fraternity friend in question, Luis, was a Beta. Some Greek stereotypes did prevail on our campus: the Sig Eps were the Stoner frat and the Phi Delts were the Football frat, but then, almost as a foil, the Phi Taus were the Computer Geek frat and the aforementioned Betas were, by most accounts, the Gay frat. (Though really, �Gay frat� is kind of a redundant apellation.) Anyway, Luis and I got drunk and spun this record in his room that night while a bunch of his �brothers� came over and someone (probably a Sig Ep) brought over some weed. We got high and eventually switched on to other, more traditionally fratty music, and soon the requisite Phish and Bob Marley were blasting out over the neighboring houses' crenelations. Anyway, for some reason I associate this album with that night, and that era in general. Maybe because it was spring, and the album�s repeated and various exhortions to throw off the shackles of the Establishment in the name of a hedonist�s agenda resonated especially well that time of year.

My relationship with the album continued throughout the ensuing years, and it became like a comfortable old jacket. The primitive two-chord structure of �Brimful Of Asha� and its absurd lyrics ("everybody needs a bosom for a pillow") are endearing where once they were irritating; the same goes for the treacly country duet near the end of the album (�Good To Be On The Road�), the messy collaboration with Allen Ginsburg (�When The Light Appears Boy�), the half-realized ideas like �What Is Happening?� and �Chocolat�, or the instrumental collages �State Troopers� and �Butter The Soul�. George Harrison wasn�t back from the Ganges long before the world grew tired of Westerners throwing sitar on top of rock songs, but these guys reclaimed it and then threw it back on our faces, and not just on their Punjabi-language cover of �Norwegian Wood� but throughout the album, melding it with dub, trip-hop, and even country. It goes without saying that the album is eclectic, and I get so sick of hearing that word in music criticism that I may impose a moratorium on it in my own writing. �Eclectic� only just begins to hint at what�s special about this album, at the ineffible quality that sets it apart from the surfeit of �world music� that gets cleaned up and imported to provincial pop music fans in the West. Eclectic or not, there�s still a unity of theme, and that theme is fun, rebellion, and a big joyous middle finger to the Man.

The epilogue, then: There�s a Punjabi word, hanji, which can loosey translate to �yes� or �okay�, but is also an enthusiastic affirmation along the lines of �all right!� or �rock on!� Tjinder Singh kicks off the album�s centerpiece, �We�re In Yr Corner� with this exclamation, and repeats it several times throughout the song. Anyway, last summer, on my birthday, I got really wasted. But wait, there�s more. Drunkenly wandering the streets of Iowa City, Ransom and I came across one of his comupter geek friends. This fellow was Indian, and he was good-humored enough to indulge me while I repeatedly raised my fist in the air and yelped, �Hanji!� He would laugh, nod, and say, �Yes, yes. Hanji.� That, right there, that total ridiculousness and lack of self-consciousness, that affirmation, that�s what this album is about. Fun. Tolerance. Hanji.

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