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 Fiji and from Woodstock.
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 1961 to 1970.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Milan and Manila.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Mumbai 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 1983 at the first Bronski Beat practice in a loft in Brixton.
I was working on the clarinet sounds with much patience.
I was there when Tom Verlaine 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 Terry Callier to the techno 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 Mandrill. All the underground hits.
All Barry Ungar tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Marmalade record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal funk hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '80s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying an arpeggiator and an oboe and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Minor Threat record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a sitar.
I hear that you and your band have sold your sitar and bought a synthesizer.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx,
Ice-T,
Jesper Dahlbäck,
Girls At Our Best!,
Marine Girls,
Carl Craig,
Erasure,
Youth Brigade,
World's Most,
Grey Daturas,
T. Rex,
Scan 7,
Cal Tjader,
The Techniques,
Colin Newman,
Visage,
Scratch Acid,
Smog,
Excepter,
Darondo,
Ultimate Spinach,
Jacques Brel,
The Happenings,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Pylon,
Sight & Sound,
The Red Krayola,
Symarip,
John Holt,
Nation of Ulysses,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,
The Seeds,
Kevin Saunderson,
Infiniti,
Newcleus,
The Modern Lovers,
The Kinks,
Buzzcocks,
Lightning Bolt,
Dual Sessions,
the Fania All-Stars,
Nik Kershaw,
Joensuu 1685,
Robert Wyatt,
Essential Logic,
DJ Sneak,
Scientists,
The Mojo Men,
Stetsasonic,
The Blackbyrds,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
Kenny Larkin,
Magazine,
The Names,
Fluxion,
Radiopuhelimet,
Lou Christie,
ABBA,
Mandrill,
Bootsy's Rubber Band,
Stiv Bators,
Sexual Harrassment, Sexual Harrassment, Sexual Harrassment, Sexual Harrassment.
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.