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 Malawi and from Winnipeg.
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 1974.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in London and Seoul.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Portland 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 1967 at the first Rodriguez practice in a loft in Detroit.
I was working on the harpsichord sounds with much patience.
I was there when Nile Rodgers 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 Byron Stingily to the grime 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 Man Eating Sloth. All the underground hits.
All The Dirtbombs tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Cheater Slicks record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal techno hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '90s.
I hear you're buying an organ and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Bobby Sherman record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitar and bought an oboe.
I hear that you and your band have sold your oboe and bought a guitar.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Dead Boys,
Wolf Eyes,
London Community Gospel Choir,
The Tremeloes,
China Crisis,
Minnie Riperton,
Los Fastidios,
The Music Machine,
Underground Resistance,
Tom Boy,
Kango’s Stein Massive,
Arab on Radar,
8 Eyed Spy,
Alice Coltrane,
Deepchord,
Oblivians,
ABC,
Sun Ra,
Tim Buckley,
Icehouse,
The Cure,
UT,
Japan,
Grauzone,
Gastr Del Sol,
the Bar-Kays,
The Blues Magoos,
The Mojo Men,
48th St. Collective,
Yusef Lateef,
Bob Dylan,
Big Daddy Kane,
Roy Ayers,
David McCallum,
The Monochrome Set,
EPMD,
Susan Cadogan,
Donny Hathaway,
Kas Product,
Manfred Mann's Earth Band,
Black Moon,
Faust,
Procol Harum,
Zero Boys,
Essential Logic,
Rhythim Is Rhythim,
Derrick May,
Cecil Taylor,
Ultimate Spinach,
Wings,
The Smiths,
Howard Jones,
Louis and Bebe Barron,
Neil Young,
Excepter,
Joy Division,
Hoover,
the Normal,
Heaven 17,
Todd Terry,
Deadbeat, Deadbeat, Deadbeat, Deadbeat.
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.