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 Honduras and from Manila.
But I was there.
I was there in 1980.
I was there at the first Cybotron show in Detroit.
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 1965 to 1970.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Spokane and Paris.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Bologna 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 clarinet 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 The Gap Band to the rock kids.
I played it at the Astoria.
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 The Smiths. All the underground hits.
All Hoover tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Ultimate Spinach 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 an oboe and a linndrum and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Ossler record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your linndrum and bought a mellotron.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a linndrum.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Don Cherry,
Model 500,
The Pop Group,
In Retrospect,
The Music Machine,
Radiopuhelimet,
Tommy Roe,
The Trojans,
Simply Red,
World's Most,
Boz Scaggs,
Main Source,
Donald Byrd,
The Shadows of Knight,
Urselle,
Rotary Connection,
Throbbing Gristle,
Roy Ayers Ubiquity,
Outsiders,
Cybotron,
The Mojo Men,
James White and The Blacks,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Alison Limerick,
The Blues Magoos,
Alton Ellis,
These Immortal Souls,
Can,
Scrapy,
Barrington Levy,
Man Parrish,
Mo-Dettes,
The Cramps,
Ornette Coleman,
Nation of Ulysses,
Lou Reed & John Cale,
U.S. Maple,
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap,
Ash Ra Tempel,
Lyres,
Roy Ayers,
Coldchain, Rosco P., Featuring Pusha T from Clipse & Boo-Bonic,
ABC,
Soft Machine,
Chrome,
Erasure,
The Victims,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Tom Boy,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Au Pairs,
New Order,
Darondo,
Ultramagnetic MC's,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Moebius,
Shuggie Otis,
D'Angelo,
Brothers Johnson,
The Seeds,
Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan.
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.