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 Guyana and from Glasgow.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970.
I was there at the first Onyeabor show in Enugu.
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 1960 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Milan and Stockholm.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Copenhagen 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 1967 at the first Rodriguez practice in a loft in Detroit.
I was working on the clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Lou Reed 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 Fela Kuti to the jazz kids.
I played it at the Crocodile.
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 Bang on a Can All-Stars. All the underground hits.
All The Remains tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Soft Machine record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grime hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a clarinet and a theremin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Matthew Bourne record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a mellotron.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Ultimate Spinach,
Arcadia,
Television,
Pussy Galore,
Don Cherry,
Black Moon,
The Buckinghams,
The Walker Brothers,
Stetsasonic,
Derrick May,
The Raincoats,
Siglo XX,
Intrusion,
Magazine,
Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud,
Alice Coltrane,
Man Eating Sloth,
Kings Of Tomorrow,
UT,
The Techniques,
Sixth Finger,
Section 25,
Dennis Brown,
The Searchers,
Girls At Our Best!,
Index,
Bob Dylan,
The Barracudas,
Liliput,
Donald Byrd,
Brass Construction,
The Gories,
The Move,
Warsaw,
The Victims,
Fat Boys,
Toni Rubio,
CMW,
Lafayette Afro Rock Band,
Brand Nubian,
Anakelly,
Crooked Eye,
Monolake,
Popol Vuh,
Robert Wyatt,
Boredoms,
Essential Logic,
Ice-T,
Parry Music,
The Five Americans,
Tubeway Army,
Alphaville,
The Cosmic Jokers,
This Heat,
The Dead C,
Fad Gadget,
Eddi Front,
John Holt, John Holt, John Holt, John Holt.
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.