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 Benin and from Winnipeg.
But I was there.
I was there in 1983.
I was there at the first Bronski Beat show in Brixton.
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 1967 to 1976.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Manchester and Hong Kong.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school New York 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 1976 at the first Feelies practice in a loft in Haledon.
I was working on the clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 techno 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 Cecil Taylor. All the underground hits.
All Fatback Band tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Arcadia record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal punk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a snare and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Byron Stingily record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a synthesizer.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Rites of Spring,
T. Rex,
Rekid,
the Fania All-Stars,
Moebius,
The Index,
Notorious BIG live in Amsterdam,
Curtis Mayfield,
Cheater Slicks,
Sixth Finger,
Sister Nancy,
The Last Poets,
The Offenders,
Erasure,
Major Organ And The Adding Machine,
Hardrive,
Judy Mowatt,
Flipper,
Dual Sessions,
Liliput,
Q65,
The United States of America,
Q and Not U,
Aaron Thompson,
Ronnie Foster,
Peter & Gordon,
Blake Baxter,
Scientists,
Outsiders,
The Happenings,
Eden Ahbez,
Ultra Naté,
Essential Logic,
Oneida,
Sound Behaviour,
Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog,
Neil Young,
Bauhaus,
Yaz,
Eli Mardock,
The Black Dice,
Ice-T,
the Slits,
Sällskapet,
Masters at Work,
Eve St. Jones,
Gregory Isaacs,
JFA,
Angels of Light & Akron/Family,
The Music Machine,
The Doors,
Pantytec,
Khruangbin,
David Bowie,
KRS-One,
Slave,
Smog,
the Human League,
Crooked Eye,
Sandy B,
Magazine,
Rhythim Is Rhythim,
Vainqueur,
the Normal, the Normal, the Normal, the Normal.
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.