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 Samoa and from Milan.
But I was there.
I was there in 1976.
I was there at the first Soft Boys show in Cambridge.
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 1961 to 1970.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Salvador and Seoul.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Hong Kong 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 1971 at the first Big Star practice in a loft in Memphis.
I was working on the clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart 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 Warren Ellis to the rap 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 Slick Rick. All the underground hits.
All Marshall Jefferson tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Rahsaan Roland Kirk 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 '50s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a harpsichord and a marimba and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Mars record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a mellotron.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a guitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
T.S.O.L.,
Yaz,
Shuggie Otis,
Arab on Radar,
The Count Five,
The Real Kids,
The Last Poets,
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282,
Con Funk Shun,
Gichy Dan,
Mary Jane Girls,
Hot Snakes,
Public Enemy,
Marc Almond,
Spandau Ballet,
Accadde A,
The Martian,
Quantec,
Curtis Mayfield,
Adolescents,
The Associates,
Cluster,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Tommy Roe,
Cecil Taylor,
Nirvana,
Robert Hood,
The Names,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Angry Samoans,
Bobby Byrd,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
The Gories,
Johnny Osbourne,
Deepchord,
These Immortal Souls,
10cc,
The Happenings,
Lower 48,
Rod Modell,
Underground Resistance,
The Neon Judgement,
Traffic Nightmare,
Chrome,
Wire,
Erasure,
The Fall,
Nico,
The Victims,
Whodini,
Yusef Lateef,
The Knickerbockers,
Yellowson,
The Men They Couldn't Hang,
New Order,
Donald Byrd,
Deakin,
Leonard Cohen,
David Bowie,
Mo-Dettes, Mo-Dettes, Mo-Dettes, Mo-Dettes.
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.