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 Swaziland and from Toronto.
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 1962 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Beijing and Cairo.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Madrid 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 guitar 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 Patti Smith to the jazz kids.
I played it at the Roxy.
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 X-102. All the underground hits.
All Josef K tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Drexciya 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 '50s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Gastr Del Sol record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Procol Harum,
Aural Exciters,
UT,
Pet Shop Boys,
Alice Coltrane,
The Tremeloes,
Organ,
Godley & Creme,
Essential Logic,
Fear,
Buzzcocks,
Reagan Youth,
Crispy Ambulance,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Soul Sonic Force,
Larry & the Blue Notes,
Derrick Morgan,
Bauhaus,
U.S. Maple,
The Cosmic Jokers,
Cabaret Voltaire,
The Flesh Eaters,
Country Teasers,
Robert Wyatt,
Funky Four + One,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Bobbi Humphrey,
Unwound,
Cameo,
Junior Murvin,
The Searchers,
Gastr Del Sol,
Young Marble Giants,
Lungfish,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Michelle Simonal,
Susan Cadogan,
Maurizio,
Agitation Free,
Jimmy McGriff,
Slave,
MC5,
Boz Scaggs,
The Barracudas,
Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra,
Sonny Sharrock,
The Doobie Brothers,
Leonard Cohen,
Metal Thangz,
Eric B and Rakim,
Eyeless In Gaza,
Harmonia,
Chris & Cosey,
Judy Mowatt,
The Selecter,
48th St. Collective,
The J.B.'s,
Super Lover Cee & Casanova Rud,
Dead Boys,
Television Personalities,
Country Joe & The Fish,
Pantytec,
The Misunderstood, The Misunderstood, The Misunderstood, The Misunderstood.
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.