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 Tajikistan and from Toronto.
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 1960 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Beijing and Mumbai.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Hong Kong 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 1971 at the first Big Star practice in a loft in Memphis.
I was working on the organ 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 Lonnie Liston Smith to the techno kids.
I played it at the Crocodile.
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 Terry Callier. All the underground hits.
All Gastr Del Sol tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Technova record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal rap 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 spring reverb and a snare and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Suicide record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a rhodes.
I hear that you and your band have sold your rhodes and bought a güiro.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Curtis Mayfield,
Rhythim Is Rhythim,
EPMD,
The Cure,
Little Man,
Crime,
Negative Approach,
Echo & the Bunnymen,
James White and The Blacks,
Vaughan Mason & Crew,
Deadbeat,
Dorothy Ashby,
Patti Smith,
Average White Band,
Ponytail,
Glenn Branca,
Howard Jones,
The Alarm Clocks,
Black Flag,
Stetsasonic,
Barry Ungar,
Symarip,
T.S.O.L.,
Lou Christie,
Q65,
The Modern Lovers,
Sunsets and Hearts,
De La Soul & Jungle Brothers,
the Soft Cell,
Severed Heads,
Television Personalities,
Soulsonic Force,
Faust,
Easy Going,
U.S. Maple,
Nico,
Loose Ends,
Lightning Bolt,
This Heat,
Jesper Dahlbäck,
Visage,
Sexual Harrassment,
Livin' Joy,
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282,
Bad Manners,
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band,
Kings Of Tomorrow,
Black Moon,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
Essential Logic,
Wings,
the Fania All-Stars,
Robert Wyatt,
Throbbing Gristle,
China Crisis,
Khruangbin,
Slave,
Hasil Adkins,
The Black Dice,
Erasure, Erasure, Erasure, Erasure.
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.