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 Ecuador and from Stockholm.
But I was there.
I was there in 1984.
I was there at the first Arcadia 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 1965 to 1977.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Houston and Accra.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Jakarta 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 Holger Czukay 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 The Five Americans to the disco kids.
I played it at the Spitz.
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 Aloha Tigers. All the underground hits.
All The Selecter tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Camouflage record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal grunge hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '70s cut and another box set from the '80s.
I hear you're buying an arpeggiator and a rhodes and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Johnny Clarke record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your synthesizer and bought a spring reverb.
I hear that you and your band have sold your spring reverb and bought a synthesizer.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Hasil Adkins,
Dawn Penn,
Black Bananas,
Lou Reed,
Fear,
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth,
Yazoo,
Faraquet,
Brick,
Barrington Levy,
Judy Mowatt,
The Gun Club,
Al Stewart,
Joe Finger,
Lower 48,
Khruangbin,
The Fuzztones,
Jeru the Damaja,
Simply Red,
Bob Dylan,
Kerrie Biddell,
Big Daddy Kane,
Tim Buckley,
Swans,
OOIOO,
The Stooges,
EPMD,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks,
Visage,
Sun City Girls,
Q and Not U,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
Kurtis Blow,
cv313,
Cecil Taylor,
Todd Terry,
The Smoke,
David McCallum,
The Neon Judgement,
Easy Going,
New York Dolls,
Radiohead,
Moby Grape,
Jesper Dahlback,
Steve Hackett,
Lou Reed & Metallica,
Ponytail,
Brass Construction,
Matthew Halsall,
Avey Tare,
the Soft Cell,
Frankie Knuckles,
Howard Jones,
Zapp,
Byron Stingily,
The Moody Blues,
Heaven 17,
Babytalk,
The Sisters of Mercy,
Oppenheimer Analysis,
Suicide,
The Durutti Column,
Fad Gadget, Fad Gadget, Fad Gadget, Fad Gadget.
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.