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 Bahrain and from Lille.
But I was there.
I was there in 1971.
I was there at the first Selda show in Istanbul.
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 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Calgary and Delhi.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Houston 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 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
I was there when Nile Rodgers 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 Dennis Brown to the disco kids.
I played it at the Hacienda.
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 American Breed. All the underground hits.
All Kevin Saunderson tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Jimmy McGriff record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal disco hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a snare and an arpeggiator and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Brothers Johnson record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your snare and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a snare.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Gang Starr,
KRS-One,
Minor Threat,
La Düsseldorf,
Electric Prunes,
Bobby Byrd,
Rod Modell,
The Sisters of Mercy,
Marc Almond,
Rowland S Howard / Lydia Lunch,
Fat Boys,
Nils Olav,
Oblivians,
Average White Band,
June of 44,
Soft Machine,
EPMD,
Moby Grape,
Arab on Radar,
Curtis Mayfield,
Marc Romboy vs. Booka Shade,
Notorious BIG live in Amsterdam,
Stiv Bators,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
PIL,
Roger Hodgson,
Banda Bassotti,
T. Rex,
Black Pus,
ABBA,
Howard Jones,
Basic Channel,
Tres Demented,
Erasure,
Young Marble Giants,
Sonic Youth,
The Chocolate Watch Band,
Yazoo,
New Order,
Unwound,
The Toasters,
Nirvana,
Yusef Lateef,
Pharoah Sanders,
Thompson Twins,
The Men They Couldn't Hang,
Sun Ra,
Guru Guru,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Radio Birdman,
DNA,
Altered Images,
De La Soul & Jungle Brothers,
R.M.O.,
Cluster,
Andrew Hill,
The Wake,
Stockholm Monsters,
Eric Copeland,
Cheater Slicks,
Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan.
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.