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 Senegal and from Lyon.
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 1967 to 1975.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Manchester and Jakarta.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Lagos 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 sitar sounds with much patience.
I was there when Robert Palmer 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 Big Daddy Kane to the grunge 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 CMW. All the underground hits.
All The Count Five tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Unrelated Segments record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grunge 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 rhodes and a 808 and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Blossom Toes record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your organ and bought a spring reverb.
I hear that you and your band have sold your spring reverb and bought an organ.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Cymande,
The Sound,
Minnie Riperton,
X-102,
In Retrospect,
The Dave Clark Five,
Todd Rundgren,
The Cure,
Minor Threat,
Arab on Radar,
Wasted Youth,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
Fatback Band,
Sexual Harrassment,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
The Human League,
James Chance & The Contortions,
The Divine Comedy,
The Tremeloes,
Magma,
Spandau Ballet,
Rotary Connection,
Bootsy Collins,
Faraquet,
Peter & Gordon,
Underground Resistance,
T.S.O.L.,
H. Thieme,
Funky Four + One,
The Moody Blues,
Stockholm Monsters,
The Pretty Things,
Brick,
Eric Copeland,
The Techniques,
Moss Icon,
Fugazi,
The Shadows of Knight,
The Move,
Joensuu 1685,
These Immortal Souls,
Dual Sessions,
Anthony Braxton,
Wings,
Procol Harum,
Symarip,
JFA,
Jeff Mills,
Essential Logic,
Lindisfarne,
Television,
the Slits,
Pulsallama,
Section 25,
Vladislav Delay,
Derrick May,
Bauhaus,
Kenny Larkin,
Tears for Fears,
L. Decosne,
Donny Hathaway,
Lou Reed, Lou Reed, Lou Reed, Lou Reed.
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.