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 Mongolia and from Calgary.
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 1965 to 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Beijing and Shanghai.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Mexico City 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 snare 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 The Sisters of Mercy to the crunk kids.
I played it at the Troubador.
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 Cosmic Jokers. All the underground hits.
All The Jesus and Mary Chain tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every The Martian record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal crunk 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 snare and a clarinet and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a The Leaves record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought a güiro.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a sitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Japan,
Dawn Penn,
Jacob Miller,
The J.B.'s,
Porter Ricks,
Subhumans,
Rotary Connection,
Brand Nubian,
La Düsseldorf,
Eric B and Rakim,
X-Ray Spex,
Fatback Band,
Pharoah Sanders,
The Count Five,
The Doobie Brothers,
Roxy Music,
The Remains,
the Slits,
Half Japanese,
Josef K,
Derrick Morgan,
Erasure,
Robert Wyatt,
Dorothy Ashby,
Vladislav Delay,
Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines,
The Gap Band,
Girls At Our Best!,
This Heat,
The Kinks,
Amon Düül,
London Community Gospel Choir,
Reagan Youth,
Monks,
The Velvet Underground,
Liliput,
Newcleus,
Bauhaus,
Talk Talk,
Neu!,
Steve Hackett,
Blancmange,
The Pretty Things,
Stereo Dub,
Index,
Bobby Womack,
Tres Demented,
Aaron Thompson,
Crime,
The Young Rascals,
Echospace,
Johnny Clarke,
The United States of America,
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy,
The Golliwogs,
Vainqueur,
The Buckinghams,
Traffic Nightmare,
Fugazi,
Amazonics,
The Slits,
Lungfish, Lungfish, Lungfish, Lungfish.
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.