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 Antigua and from Mexico City.
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 1966 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Delhi and Tehran.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Madrid 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 arpeggiator sounds with much patience.
I was there when Lou Reed 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 Basic Channel 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 Judy Mowatt. All the underground hits.
All Circle Jerks tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Lou Reed & John Cale record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal dance hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and a clarinet and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Sound Behaviour record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought a chamberlin.
I hear that you and your band have sold your chamberlin and bought a guitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Warsaw,
Kerrie Biddell,
Interpol,
Gang Gang Dance,
Byron Stingily,
The Golliwogs,
JFA,
Adolescents,
The Beau Brummels,
Loose Ends,
Con Funk Shun,
Camron Feat. Memphis Bleek And Beenie Seigel,
Brick,
Moebius,
Lalo Schifrin,
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band,
Scrapy,
Excepter,
Danielle Patucci,
Section 25,
New York Dolls,
Visage,
The Skatalites,
Marc Almond,
Japan,
the Slits,
Gastr Del Sol,
This Heat,
The Dead C,
Lyres,
Bobbi Humphrey,
The Gap Band,
Swell Maps,
Heaven 17,
James White and The Blacks,
Hashim,
Angry Samoans,
The Human League,
Grauzone,
Scan 7,
the Swans,
La Düsseldorf,
Lee Hazlewood,
John Coltrane,
Dawn Penn,
Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan,
Marshall Jefferson,
The Cure,
The Modern Lovers,
Skriet,
Alice Coltrane,
A Flock of Seagulls,
Neil Young & Crazy Horse,
Erykah Badu,
Shoche,
the Sonics,
The Doors,
T. Rex,
The Cramps,
New Age Steppers,
The Mummies, The Mummies, The Mummies, The Mummies.
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.