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 Pakistan and from Bremen.
But I was there.
I was there in 1978.
I was there at the first Visage show in London.
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 1968 to 1979.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Milan and Johannesburg.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Lyon 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 clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart 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 Gang Gang Dance to the funk kids.
I played it at the Astoria.
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 Scientists. All the underground hits.
All Jeff Lynne tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal punk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying a snare and an organ and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your arpeggiator and bought a sitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought an arpeggiator.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Television,
Kaleidoscope,
Curtis Mayfield,
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks,
Bad Manners,
Major Organ And The Adding Machine,
The Dave Clark Five,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
Parry Music,
Drive Like Jehu,
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson,
Throbbing Gristle,
The Seeds,
Glenn Branca,
David Bowie,
James Chance & The Contortions,
Radiopuhelimet,
Alison Limerick,
Visage,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
The Fugs,
Ajijia Myrayebe,
Warren Ellis,
Can,
The Black Dice,
Pylon,
Bizarre Inc.,
Jesper Dahlbäck,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Spoonie Gee,
Livin' Joy,
Suburban Knight,
Arthur Verocai,
Pole,
Eurythmics,
Whodini,
Public Image Ltd.,
Sparks,
Ice-T,
The Pretty Things,
Barclay James Harvest,
The Smoke,
Marc Romboy vs. Booka Shade,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Marine Girls,
Rufus Thomas,
Black Flag,
Erasure,
Donald Byrd,
Shuggie Otis,
Charles Mingus,
In Retrospect,
The Trojans,
This Heat,
Jacques Brel,
Richard Hell and the Voidoids,
Roger Hodgson,
Rakim,
Monolake,
Adolescents,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Aural Exciters, Aural Exciters, Aural Exciters, Aural Exciters.
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.