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 Cyprus and from Jakarta.
But I was there.
I was there in 1968.
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
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 Lagos and Stockholm.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Manchester 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 1968 at the first Can practice in a loft in Cologne.
I was working on the oboe 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 Nation of Ulysses to the dance kids.
I played it at Trash.
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 Blues Magoos. All the underground hits.
All Eric Dolphy tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Cal Tjader record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal electroclash hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a guitar and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Young Marble Giants record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a synthesizer.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Magazine,
Dark Day,
Tomorrow,
Amazonics,
Technova,
Monolake,
Alice Coltrane,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Hashim,
Erasure,
Joyce Sims,
Darondo,
The Vogues,
Lou Reed & Metallica,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Gil Scott Heron,
Pierre Henry,
The Stooges,
Notorious BIG live in Amsterdam,
The Fire Engines,
Slick Rick,
the Swans,
The Beau Brummels,
Television Personalities,
Procol Harum,
Marine Girls,
Frankie Knuckles,
Television,
MDC,
Ken Boothe,
Silicon Teens,
Lindisfarne,
Ultra Naté,
The Invisible,
The Pretty Things,
Lightning Bolt,
Theoretical Girls,
Minny Pops,
The Slackers,
Ludus,
Pere Ubu,
10cc,
Johnny Osbourne,
T. Rex,
The Sonics,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Steve Hackett,
Wasted Youth,
Lower 48,
Bizarre Inc.,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Rhythm & Sound,
Funkadelic,
Dorothy Ashby,
The Gladiators,
the Human League,
Sun City Girls,
Peter and Kerry,
a-ha,
The Moleskins,
Heaven 17,
Oppenheimer Analysis, Oppenheimer Analysis, Oppenheimer Analysis, Oppenheimer Analysis.
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.