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 Thailand and from Philadelphia.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Big Star show in Memphis.
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 Spokane and Salvador.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Edmonton 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 1973 at the first Television practice in a loft in New York.
I was working on the theremin sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 Strawberry Alarm Clock to the techno 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 Delta 5. All the underground hits.
All Rekid tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Aswad record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal funk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a mellotron and a güiro and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Desert Stars record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Robert Wyatt,
The Velvet Underground,
Zero Boys,
The Monochrome Set,
Soft Machine,
The Happenings,
In Retrospect,
Gang Green,
Bang on a Can All-Stars,
the Human League,
Prince Buster,
Peter & Gordon,
Boredoms,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Camouflage,
Fugazi,
Bobby Sherman,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Funkadelic,
Underground Resistance,
Wally Richardson,
Aloha Tigers,
Infiniti,
Jesper Dahlback,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Be Bop Deluxe,
David McCallum,
Scion,
The Real Kids,
the Bar-Kays,
Depeche Mode,
The Knickerbockers,
David Bowie,
Boogie Down Productions,
Average White Band,
Television,
Frankie Knuckles,
Magma,
Wasted Youth,
Todd Rundgren,
Rosa Yemen,
The Zeros,
X-102,
Hoover,
Anthony Braxton,
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band,
Maleditus Sound,
The Last Poets,
Harry Pussy,
Saccharine Trust,
Warsaw,
Fort Wilson Riot,
Dawn Penn,
Lebanon Hanover,
MC5,
Delta 5,
Flamin' Groovies,
Negative Approach,
Absolute Body Control,
Intrusion,
Jacob Miller,
Warren Ellis,
Minutemen, Minutemen, Minutemen, Minutemen.
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.