Infinitely Losing My Edge
Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from Kyrgyzstan and from Winnipeg.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Selda show in Istanbul.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1968 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Delhi and Mexico City.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Accra kids in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered nineties.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
I was there when Donald Fagen started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing Erykah Badu to the crunk kids.
I played it at the Troubador.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.
But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.
I'm losing my edge.
I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.
Every great song by Boogie Down Productions. All the underground hits.
All Livin' Joy tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every The Wake record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal dance hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a linndrum and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Sound Behaviour record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a synthesizer.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a mellotron.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Flamin' Groovies,
Bang on a Can All-Stars,
Howard Jones,
KRS-One,
Pierre Henry,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Faust,
Neu!,
Wire,
Flash Fearless,
JFA,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Graham Central Station,
Marvin Gaye,
Nation of Ulysses,
John Lydon,
Cluster,
Tears for Fears,
the Germs,
The Gun Club,
Josef K,
Strawberry Alarm Clock,
Laurel Aitken,
Gabor Szabo,
The Busters,
Sound Behaviour,
Alice Coltrane,
T.S.O.L.,
Pole,
The Cosmic Jokers,
Pussy Galore,
Mars,
Whodini,
The Vogues,
Parry Music,
The Dead C,
Man Parrish,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Slave,
X-102,
Bobby Sherman,
Lou Reed & John Cale,
Ultimate Spinach,
Crime,
Model 500,
The Zeros,
Scott Walker + Sunn O))),
Inner City,
Tommy Roe,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Agitation Free,
The Searchers,
John Coltrane,
Sonny Sharrock,
Lou Reed & Metallica,
Roxette,
Suicide,
Lower 48,
The Barracudas,
Radiopuhelimet,
The Grass Roots, The Grass Roots, The Grass Roots, The Grass Roots.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.