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 Turkey and from Lille.
But I was there.
I was there in 1965.
I was there at the first Beefheart show in Lancaster.
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 1969 to 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Sao Paulo and London.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Accra 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 theremin sounds with much patience.
I was there when Michael McDonald 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 Standells to the electroclash kids.
I played it at Cafe Wha.
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 Nik Kershaw. All the underground hits.
All Y Pants tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Sun Ra 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 '70s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a China Crisis record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your snare and bought a marimba.
I hear that you and your band have sold your marimba and bought a snare.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
A Certain Ratio,
Motorama,
Aaron Thompson,
The Blackbyrds,
The Monks,
Ultravox,
Yaz,
Dark Day,
Kas Product,
Cybotron,
The Kinks,
Deepchord,
Sexual Harrassment,
Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish,
Duran Duran,
Easy Going,
Man Parrish,
Erasure,
Bush Tetras,
Joy Division,
Gabor Szabo,
Moebius,
Marc Almond,
The Angels of Light,
Iggy Pop,
Smog,
Toni Rubio,
Scott Walker + Sunn O))),
Selector Dub Narcotic,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Blake Baxter,
Joensuu 1685,
Model 500,
The Five Americans,
Pussy Galore,
Soulsonic Force,
T.S.O.L.,
T. Rex,
The Evens,
Fort Wilson Riot,
Scion,
The Pretty Things,
Reagan Youth,
The Cowsills,
Country Joe & The Fish,
Theoretical Girls,
the Fania All-Stars,
the Bar-Kays,
Subhumans,
The Shadows of Knight,
In Retrospect,
Bronski Beat,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
Blancmange,
Public Enemy,
The Misunderstood,
Gregory Isaacs,
Erykah Badu,
Robert Hood,
Ice-T,
Fluxion, Fluxion, Fluxion, Fluxion.
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.