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 Sudan and from Seoul.
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 1961 to 1971.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Lyon and Jakarta.
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 1976 at the first Chic practice in a loft in New York.
I was working on the snare 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 Major Organ And The Adding Machine to the grime 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 Sunsets and Hearts. All the underground hits.
All Letta Mbulu tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Gastr Del Sol record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal techno 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 synthesizer and a chamberlin and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Bill Near record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your clarinet and bought a synthesizer.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a clarinet.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Rufus Thomas,
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282,
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry,
The J.B.'s,
The Stooges,
The Litter,
David Bowie,
Gang Gang Dance,
Cabaret Voltaire,
La Düsseldorf,
Harpers Bizarre,
A Certain Ratio,
John Coltrane,
Isaac Hayes,
Pantaleimon,
Warsaw,
The Fortunes,
Qualms,
Oneida,
Chrome,
Wighnomy Brothers & Robag Wruhme,
The Selecter,
Roy Ayers,
Delta 5,
The Gladiators,
Ornette Coleman,
Yusef Lateef,
Terry Callier,
Black Pus,
Lou Christie,
Sixth Finger,
Joy Division,
Crime,
The Pretty Things,
Moss Icon,
Young Marble Giants,
Radiopuhelimet,
Wire,
Major Organ And The Adding Machine,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Eve St. Jones,
Lungfish,
Beasts of Bourbon,
Clear Light,
Au Pairs,
Khruangbin,
Lonnie Liston Smith,
Malaria!,
the Soft Cell,
The Black Dice,
Procol Harum,
Schoolly D,
Bad Manners,
Icehouse,
The Real Kids,
Q and Not U,
Dawn Penn,
Juan Atkins,
Robert Wyatt,
Kas Product,
John Foxx,
China Crisis,
Stockholm Monsters, Stockholm Monsters, Stockholm Monsters, Stockholm Monsters.
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.